Sonoma man who escaped police patrol car surrenders six hours later
Dominic Gates, 21, turned himself in six hours after he escaped from a police patrol car early Thursday morning.
SONOMA, Calif. (BCN) - A handcuffed Sonoma man who escaped from a police patrol car early Thursday morning turned himself in about six hours later, Sonoma police said.
Dominic Gates, 21, of Sonoma, was arrested for public intoxication around 12:30 a.m. at a gas station in the 500 block of W. Napa St., police said.
A deputy who took him to the Sonoma Valley substation for pre-booking rolled down the rear seat windows and went into the substation to get paperwork, police said.
The deputy heard Gates slam the patrol car door and ran outside to see Gates jumping a fence of the secured parking lot, police said. Gates managed to slip his handcuffed arms to the front of his body and through the bars on the patrol car windows. He then unlatched the door and fled the vehicle, police said.
Deputies and a sheriff's office helicopter searched the neighborhood and contacted Gates' relatives before calling off the search.
Gates, still handcuffed, turned himself in at the substation around 6:45 a.m. He was booked under $2,500 bail for escape and public intoxication, police said.