A woman stole a car from the Safeway parking lot Saturday and crashed it in a front yard, Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane said Monday.
Samantha Gates Morris, 19, of Towaoc, stole a 2009 Chevy Trailblazer out of the Safeway parking lot just after 10 a.m. Saturday, Lane said. The keys were in the car, he said, and Morris didn’t say why she took it, Lane said.
Police followed Morris, who was reportedly was driving erratically, for about 30 minutes before she crashed through an iron fence and came to a stop in a front yard at Third and Maple streets, the chief said. The car was released to the owners with minimal damage, he said.
She was arrested after abandoning the Trailblazer in the front yard, and trying to kick her way through a wood fence in the backyard.
A storage shed at the Sikis Village mobile home park on South Broadway also was damaged, Lane said.
Morris was being held in Montezuma County jail as of June 27 on charges of driving under the influence, vehicular eluding, reckless driving, theft, abusing toxic vapors, reckless endangerment and aggravated motor theft, Lane said.
