Metro

Thief leads cops on wild Brooklyn car chase: police

A suspected car thief led cops on a wild, Hollywood-style chase today through the streets of Brooklyn, dodging roadblocks and bullets before he was finally cornered.

Officials said patrol officers from the 75th Precinct stopped a Mercedes Benz on Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York shortly after 8 a.m. because it had Florida license plates.

When they checked the registration, they learned the car was stolen, and asked the driver to get out.

But instead of leaving the car, the driver sped off along Pennsylvania Avenue before turning left on Liberty Avenue, with the patrol car in hot pursuit.

Cops said a captain heard a call for assistance on his radio, and joined in setting up a road block with his car at Liberty and Sheffield avenues.

When the Mercedes stopped, the captain approached the car, where the driver put up his hands as if to surrender. But the suspect hit the gas, clipping the captain, who fired two shots at the speeding vehicle.

From Liberty Avenue, the driver turned the wrong way along Powell Street where he barrelled into a van and a charter bus.

“He was flying,” bus driver Charlie Williams said of the Mercedes driver. “The cops were right behind him. I couldn’t think. It happened so fast. It’s good no one was in the bus.”

After the collision, the suspect’s car was trapped, so he took off on foot. Witnesses said he tried to go into a supermarket along Junius Street until he was scared off by a store security guard.

Then he climbed a scaffold and tried to hide on a nearby rooftop, where he was nabbed.

“He tried to come in here,” said Carlos Ferrer, a Food Bazaar security guard. “I saw him. he looked at me and turned back.”

Officials said the suspect was arrested and had several scrapes and bruises. The officer he hit suffered a minor leg injury, cops said.