A 15-year-old girl was charged with felony criminal mischief after she struck a police cruiser with a metal shovel while an officer was seated inside in Port St. Lucie.Body-cam footage released by the Port St. Lucie Police Department showed the teenager, identified as Amy Chance, in the middle of the street approaching the stationary patrol car without any apparent provocation on November 3. Florida police say a Port St. Lucie teenager took “yard tool rage” to a new level when she repeatedly bashed a patrol car with a metal shovel — while an officer was still sitting in it.
Fifteen-year-old Amy Chance was arrested on November 3 after police were called to a disturbance at her family home. According to the department, what followed required no detective work: body-camera footage shows Chance in the middle of the street, shovel in hand, advancing straight toward the parked cruiser and striking its hood several times without so much as a word.With the taser trained on her, Chance briefly mean- mugged the officer, then complied and dropped the shovel. She flipped off the officer and began to walk away before he closed in, ordered her to stop and said, “Get on the f**king ground,” as he turned her around, made her kneel on the pavement and placed her in handcuffs. Authorities said she was taken into custody without further incident. Chance is now facing a felony criminal mischief charge for causing more than $1,200 worth of damage to the patrol car. “Regardless of age, resorting to intentional damage of people or property in our city will result in an arrest,” the Port St. Lucie Police Department said in its press release. It remains unclear why officers were called to Chance’s home or what prompted her to attack the police cruiser. In a separate incident in Anaheim on September 15, an officer responded to a 911 call at around 12:45 p.m. about a suspicious man, possibly under the influence, carrying a brick and a shovel. When 36-year-old Rudy Anthony Martinez II spotted the patrol car, he charged towards it wielding the shovel. Dash-cam footage showed the officer ordering Martinez to “sit down” during the attack, warning him he’s “gonna get shot” if the assault continued. Fearing for his safety, the officer fired two warning shots, but Martinez pressed on. The officer then opened fire, and Martinez died 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital. “Are you kidding me?” the officer asks, incredulous, from inside the car — moments before he steps out, draws his Taser and orders the teen to drop the tool.
