A teen with a loaded gun in a stolen vehicle was captured after leading law enforcement on a chase that ended at an apartment complex in Lady Lake.
The 17-year-old had been at the wheel of a black Chevrolet pickup truck at 10:20 p.m. Tuesday in Leesburg when he fled down U.S. Hwy. 27/441 at speeds reaching 100 miles per hour, according to an arrest report from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The pursuit led the deputies to the Lake North Apartments on County Road 466 in Lady Lake, where the vehicle was found abandoned. The 17-year-old’s identification was found in the vehicle along with a 40-caliber handgun with a live round in the chamber and eight rounds in the magazine. There was also 33 grams of methamphetamine in the truck.
A K-9 search for the suspected truck thief yielded no results.
A woman approached deputies as they inventoried the vehicle and said it may have been driven by one of her “grandbabies.” She said she was going to call the teen’s mother. The woman walked away.
A witness told deputies the suspect had been seen entering an apartment at the complex and he was later spotted getting into the back seat of a vehicle in the parking lot. The teen was apprehended in the vehicle.
He said he bought the gun from an uncle in Orlando and said he “carries it because that is the way he came up living in Carver Heights (Leesburg),” the arrest report said.
