PURDYS- The tiny hamlet of Purdys hadn’t experienced this much excitement in decades.
Around 2 p.m. the Real Time Crime center broadcast an alert that a vehicle wanted by the Port Chester Police Department was traveling northbound on Route 684 towards Putnam County.
Westchester County Police spokesman Kieran O’Leary said an officer spotted the vehicle as it passed Exit 4 in Bedford and followed it without attempting a traffic stop while waiting for other officers to arrive.
The vehicle exited the interstate at Exit 7 in Purdys, where the officer stopped it on the ramp. O’Leary added on Friday afternoon: “The driver and two passengers were detained while other officers investigated. The driver was identified as a 31-year-old Bronx man wanted by the Port Chester Police Department and was taken into custody on a Port Chester warrant charging him with grand larceny.”
O’Leary added as officers were identifying the vehicle’s two passengers, Port Chester Police arrived on the scene to take their suspect into custody.
“During the transfer, one passenger fled toward Route 116 and eventually entered a wooded area. Officers from the Westchester County, New York State and North Salem police departments established a perimeter, while the county and state police each deployed a tracking canine,” O’Leary said.
The canines and their handlers tracked the fleeing suspect into a wooded area and located him trying to hide behind a rock and under leaves near a riverbed.
Miguel Mendoza, 22, of Queens, was charged with Escape, Reckless Endangerment, Obstruction of Governmental Administration, and False Personation.
At Westchester County Police headquarters in Hawthorne, officers discovered that Mendoza was also wanted on a New York City grand larceny warrant.
Mendoza was taken to the NYPD’s 50th Precinct in the Bronx.
After more than a dozen police vehicles cleared the scene hours later, the sleepy hamlet of Purdys returned to normal.
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