A police officer is in hospital with serious injuries after being run over by a suspected car thief.
West Midlands police said the officer is being treated for head and pelvic injuries following the incident in Birmingham on Saturday afternoon. The force said a 29-year-old man, from Hall Green, had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
In a statement, West Midlands police said the traffic officer was in Moorcroft Road, Moseley, tracking a Range Rover Sport which had been stolen minutes earlier from a woman.
The police said that when the officer attempted to arrest the suspect at about 4.45pm, he was violently assaulted and punched to the ground. He was then run over by the suspect who had got behind the wheel of the officer’s patrol car.
West Midlands police said it is understood the man drove the vehicle for about a mile into Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook, where he abandoned it and tried to steal another car.
Back-up officers, including armed police, cornered the suspect, who was Tasered and arrested.
A 24-year-old man has also been arrested for car theft, the force said.
Sarah Boycott, the assistant chief constable, said: “This is a shocking attack in which a member of our police family has been seriously hurt while trying to detain a crime suspect.
“Attacks on our officers and staff won’t be tolerated and we will always seek the toughest possible criminal justice outcome for offenders.”
Eyewitness Sohail Razaque said that he was driving up to the junction of Ladypool Road when a police car came past him with its sirens on and collided with another vehicle , before the man was taken into custody.
Razaque, 48, from Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, said: “The officers there were on their radios and saying, ‘It’s the guy in the coloured trousers’ and they saw him trying to get in the car. It all happened pretty quickly. There were about 40 police, a lot of them armed, some had Tasers, some had guns.
“He was sort of almost walking through the crowds, with the officers following – and that’s where they Tasered him and took him down. There was about four or five officers on top of him and then, about five minutes later, they had him up, and walked him past me and put him in a police car.”