First, just so we can all comfortably enjoy the rich creamy bonkers that this situation is, I want to be clear that nobody was seriously hurt and the two grand theft taco suspects were caught. Now let’s just let the details wash over us: stolen taco truck, a school bus, gunfire, and a propane tanker.
Here’s what went down in San Bernardino on Leap Day, according to the LA Times. Oh yeah, and this all happened on Leap Day! That makes it even better.
Two guys, Sean Fowler, 20, and Daiquon Horn, 22, allegedly stole a full taco truck from Amapola Rico Taco restaurant. Both men were presumed to very, very hungry.
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The truck was stolen about 1 a.m., and for some reason, at some point in the evening, the accused taconappers took the truck into a woman’s driveway, where they had a really hard time backing out of the driveway, even hitting her truck. Incredibly, the driveway’s owner saw the truck again and confronted them, unaware the truck was stolen.
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The newspaper says that as police officers were taking a report on the stolen taco truck, the truck itself lumbered by, causing the police to (and I’m assuming here) throw their pads and pens up in the air and bolt for their cruisers, with at least one of the officers probably doing that slide-over-the-hood-0n-your-ass cop thing.
With the taco alert sirens blaring, the chase reached high speeds on the 215 Freeway, with the taco truck hitting 80 MPH, and hitting two vehicles.
The taco truck exited at Mill Street, a terrible idea because the traffic on that street is terrible during morning rush hour, when all of this went down. The taco truck immediately found itself crammed in the hot, spicy gridlock that’s almost as much of a Southern California icon as the hot, spicy purloined tacos in the truck.
The taco truck tried to clumsily steer around traffic, and in the process, drove onto a sidewalk next to a bus from a prep school carrying 40 students. The taco truck sideswiped the bus and rear-ended it while trying to get around it, and once it did, it immediately T-boned a propane tanker, which finally stopped it.
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I guess the two taco thieves felt like this clusterfuck needed just another little bit of something, so they bolted from the truck and tried to escape, causing police officers to open fire.
Because, you know, a wildly speeding taco truck that plows into a full schoolbus in bumper-to-bumper traffic and then crashes into a giant pressurized vessel of highly flammable fuel just isn’t enough. It needs that extra spice that only live gunfire can provide.
As one officer told the LA Times,
“Initially it was pretty crazy – dealing with an officer-involved shooting, the two suspects were injured, then I think I smell gas, plus now you got to move these kids out of the area.”
That’s a hell of a day. The two suspects were arrested, the kids got to school, and the propane truck didn’t explode. The fate of the tacos is not known, though it’s hoped they can be rehabilitated and found good homes in hungry citizens’ bellies.
Hat tip to Arpad!
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.
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