Video shows driver fleeing police with officer on bonnet, roof of car

An image of the incident taken from police dash cam video. Photo / AP

Harrowing video of a driver speeding from Iowa police with an officer clinging to his car’s bonnet and roof emerged this month during the motorist’s sentencing.

Dennis James Guider Jr., 29, of the Chicago area, was sentenced last week to up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony count of serious injury by vehicle. Another felony count related to fleeing police was dismissed as part of the plea deal reached in March.

Carroll, Iowa, police Officer Patrick McCarty stopped the car Guider was riding in on March 5, 2021. With an outstanding warrant in an Illinois forgery case, he was facing arrest.

Body camera video that was introduced as an exhibit during Guider’s sentencing hearing shows him ignoring orders to get out of the car, instead shoving the driver out of the vehicle and scooting into the driver’s seat.

McCarty got in front of the car, pointing his pistol at Guider and repeatedly ordering him to stop. As Guider drove forward, McCarty stepped onto the car’s bonnet and crouched with his weapon still pointed at Guider.

Guider kept driving as McCarty clung to the vehicle, screaming at him to put on the brakes.

Dash cam from another patrol vehicle, which attempted to stop Guider, shows McCarty ultimately winding up on the roof of the fleeing car. Eventually, McCarty was thrown from the vehicle, breaking his back.

Guider, meanwhile, was arrested in Illinois after stealing a car and driving there.

Guider’s attorney, Joel Baxter, wrote in a court filing that as a Black man, Guider was fearful of a white officer, noting that George Floyd had been killed less than a year earlier. He wrote that McCarty and Guider both “made horrible decisions,” saying that McCarty didn’t follow appropriate training.