Deputies arrested an East Naples man Thursday after they saw him steal a car from a parking lot following a trespassing warning.
Rolando Matthew Quintana Jr., 34, was arrested Thursday and charged with stealing the vehicle and resisting arrest.
Deputies were called out to a car wash along Tamiami Trail East Thursday morning after a manager complained that Quintana seemed to be under the influence and was scaring customers and staff whom he had approached repeatedly.
Deputies gave Quintana a verbal warning and asked him to leave the property. Moments later, after finishing his report, the same deputy left the car wash and noticed Quintana a half mile down the road, entering a 2007 Mercedes Benz in the parking lot of a bike store.
Quintana drove out of the parking lot and drove down Tamiami Trail East at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, failing to stop for deputies who had activated their lights and sirens.
Quintana wove through traffic, making aggressive lane changes in excess of 80 miles per hour, before cutting through a Walmart parking lot to evade deputies. Deputies ended the pursuit given high pedestrian traffic in the area, and instead back-up units flooded the shopping center to look for the Mercedes Benz.
Quintana abandoned the stolen vehicle and fled on foot. While running from the vehicle Quintana jumped into a landscaping truck and asked the driver to let him hide because he “just stole a car and the cops were looking for him.”
A deputy noticed Quintana walking through the shopping center moments later and made an arrest.
At some point during the pursuit, the victim called deputies to report that her car had been stolen. The victim said she noticed her cell phone and keys were missing from her purse, while shopping at the bike store. When she called her phone to locate it, a man returned it to her, saying he had found it in the bike store bathroom. The man left the store and a moment later the victim watched as her car left the parking lot.
Deputies retrieved the stolen vehicle from the shopping center and returned it to the victim. Quintana was charged with grand theft auto, fleeing and eluding, grand theft and resisting arrest without violence.
