A 30-year-old man accused of stealing a car allegedly tried to get away from police Sunday evening, as he almost struck a Massachusetts State Police trooper with the stolen BMW before hitting several parked cars and ditching bags of fentanyl.
Jose Bautista, of East Providence, R.I., is facing more than a dozen charges — including assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of a large capacity feeding device, and trafficking fentanyl — after the police chase in Foxboro on Sunday.
Shortly before 7 p.m., a Massachusetts State Trooper saw a white BMW X5 SUV — which had been reported stolen from a Waltham dealership — parked outside a building at The Lodge apartment complex in Foxboro. Other State Police personnel and Foxborough Police responded.
Then at about 7:40 p.m., police saw a man later ID’d as Bautista enter the stolen BMW. A trooper turned on his emergency blue lights and pulled in front of the BMW.
As the trooper got out of his cruiser, Bautista allegedly drove to the right of the cruiser, coming within a few feet of striking the trooper, and almost hitting a Foxborough Police cruiser.
The BMW then struck the rear of a parked Toyota RAV 4 SUV, nearly missed another State Police cruiser, hit the rear of a parked Toyota Corolla sedan, and pushed that car into the side of another parked car, a Nissan Armada SUV. The suspect then struck a Ford Mustang coupe, and left the parking lot.
A Foxborough police officer and a trooper pursued the BMW onto Foxborough Boulevard. Bautista sped away, with no lights on and at times on the wrong side of the road, even with extensive damage to the stolen BMW, police said.
Bautista then entered Route 140 toward Route 95. He stopped in the breakdown lane just before the on-ramp to Route 95 and ran into the woods, where he scaled a large chain link fence and continued to run.
The Foxborough officer, who is part of that K9 Unit, then drove to a parking lot on the other side of the fence that the suspect had climbed over. That officer and his K9 partner Max began a track of the suspect, along with help from a trooper who had jumped over the fence.
Police then received word that a man matching the suspect’s description was at the Shell gas station at 32 Commercial St., and was apparently trying to steal a car.
A Foxborough officer arrived at the gas station moments later and took Bautista into custody.
Meanwhile, during the K9 track, Max located a clothing item linked to the suspect, two cell phones near the fence he had scaled, the suspect’s driver’s license, and several clear plastic bags containing a white powder substance believed to be fentanyl.
Inside the stolen BMW, a trooper found a high-capacity magazine containing 29 rounds of 10mm ammunition. Police also found two selector switches, which are used to convert a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic weapon. They also recovered a prescription pill bottle with the name torn off, which contained several small round blue pills consistent in appearance to Percocet.