Woman slipped out of handcuffs and tried to steal patrol car, Chattanooga police say

A Chattanooga woman was arrested last week after she slipped out of her handcuffs and attempted to drive off in the patrol car of the officer who arrested her, police said.

Darla McElroy, 25, was charged with vandalism, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, theft of property, driving under the influence and reckless endangerment after the Nov. 23 incident.

Chattanooga Officer Corey Stokes reported that his run-in with McElroy began when he responded to a complaint that she was trespassing at a home on Glenwood Drive.

When officers went into the house with the property manager, McElroy, who appeared intoxicated, greeted them with a "heavy level of profanity," Stokes said in an arrest report.

As arguments escalated among people in the house, officers said McElroy became increasingly hostile and wrenched away from their grasp when they tried to handcuff her.

Officers eventually forced her to the ground, handcuffed her and placed her in the patrol car. After Stokes went back into the house to talk with the other residents, McElroy slipped out of her handcuffs, popped out the cage window of the patrol car and tried to steal the car, Stokes said.

Another officer at the scene broke the driver's side window and used his taser on McElroy while Stokes removed McElroy from the driver's seat and called a medic team from Erlanger for a medical evaluation. She was booked Silverdale Detention Facility, where she remains on a $14,000 bond.

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