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First Posted: 7/6/2013
WILKES-BARRE — City police on Saturday night were looking for two suspects in an alleged taxicab robbery after an officer crashed his cruiser into a garage during an effort to find the men.
At about 9:40 p.m., police received a call reporting the gunpoint robbery of a Burgit City Taxi in the area of Charles Street Park. The victim was not injured, police said, and it wasn’t immediately clear what might have been taken.
As the victimized cab driver was broadcasting news of the robbery out to his own taxi dispatchers, there was a second taxi driver in the area who believed he saw the suspects’ vehicle, police said. The second cab driver began to follow that car towards Kingston, police said.
Police heard the cab’s radio transmission and initiated pursuit. A Wilkes-Barre police cruiser struck a garage at 11 Riverside Drive in the process. The officer driving was hospitalized for his injuries, the extent of which were not known late Saturday.
Kingston police stopped the vehicle being pursued by the second cab and city police, but its occupants were not involved in the alleged robbery, city police said.
Two black males, wearing colored basketball shorts and white sneakers, were being sought in connection with the case Saturday night.