ATLANTA — A man accused of attacking a woman at the Midtown MARTA station later stole an Atlanta police cruiser and crashed it into a tanker truck on I-675, according to police.
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Police said the incident started with a stolen iPhone that eventually led investigators to the suspect, identified as Phelan Thorpe.
Thorpe is accused of following a woman from the Midtown MARTA station before attacking her.
According to an arrest affidavit, the woman told police she heard Thorpe say on the phone, “I got the pistol, so she’s not going to do anything.”
She told investigators he then tried to take her purse.
Surveillance video shows the two struggling as Thorpe repeatedly punches the woman.
“I mean, she’s fighting. She’s punching. She’s screaming,” a witness said. “We’re all screaming at him to get off.”
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Police say Thorpe ran away with the woman’s iPhone.
Investigators later used the phone to track him to his home on Thomasville Drive.
Police found Thorpe nearby Monday. According to officers, he yelled, “You two can’t take me. Y’all need to call for backup.”
Officers said Thorpe then threatened to shoot them. Court records do not indicate whether he showed a weapon, but police said they drew their weapons and prepared for a possible shootout.
That’s when police say Thorpe jumped into their Atlanta police cruiser and took off.
Police say he led officers on an eight-mile chase before crashing the cruiser into a tanker truck on I-675 near Forest Parkway.
NewsChopper 2 captured the aftermath. The cruiser’s airbags had deployed, and police said Thorpe had fled the crash.
He was eventually arrested.
A witness who saw the original attack said she was relieved Thorpe was taken into custody.
“I was definitely on edge until he was caught,” she said.
Thorpe also has a criminal history in metro Atlanta dating back about a decade.
In 2024, court records show he was sentenced to 18 months in prison after carjacking a woman in Austell and repeatedly hitting her in the face. The indictment says the attack disfigured the woman’s face.
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