Carjacking suspect crashes in Fargo

FARGO — Police say a carjacker held up two movie theater employees at gunpoint in Moorhead, Minn.,stole one of their vehicles and led authorities on a brief chase here before crashing the car early Wednesday.

The employees were leaving work at Safari Cinema at 925 30th Ave. S. at around 4 a.m. when the suspect approached them with a gun, Sgt. Mike Detloff said.

The suspect, who had been sleeping outside the theater earlier in the night, demanded the keys for a 2008 Pontiac G5 from 26-year-old Nickalas Santiago of Fargo and drove off with the car, police said.

A North Dakota Highway Patrol trooper spotted the Pontiac near I-94 and 45th Street in Fargo and waited for backup before trying to stop the car near 45th Street and Ninth Avenue South. The suspect sped off but lost control of the car about two blocks away, hitting the curb, a tree and a sign and rolling the car onto its top near Ninth Avenue South and 43rd Street, Detloff said.

“Once officers got there, he told them it was a fake gun and he couldn’t reach it. He was pinned in (the car),” Detloff said, adding police recovered a CO2-powered pellet gun from outside the car.

Firefighters had to extricate the suspect, identified as 20-year-old Emmanuel Maker Galuak.

Galuak, who has no permanent address, had a small cut on his head but refused medical treatment and was taken to the Cass County Jail, Detloff said.

Moorhead police are requesting that Galuak be charged with aggravated robbery, second-degree assault, felony theft, possession of stolen property, possession of a facsimile weapon and not having a driver’s license, Sgt. Deric Swenson said.

Galuak also faces possible charges in North Dakota.

The Pontiac appeared to be a total loss, Detloff said.

Mike Nowatzki is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

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