Photo: Golden Gate Bridge
MILL VALLEY — Taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent is never a good idea, especially for someone with a history of arrests for vehicle thefts. Such was the case last week when a man was busted again for driving another stolen car.
Apparently undeterred by his seven prior arrests for vehicle thefts, the same suspect took someone else’s car for a scenic drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on May 10—accompanied by three police agencies.
The incident began just before 6 p.m. when a Mill Valley police dispatcher received a call about a vehicle stolen from the 400 block of Magee Avenue. The suspected thief was spotted driving towards downtown Mill Valley.
A few minutes later Mill Valley police located the stolen car near Throckmorton and Miller avenues, but the driver refused to pull over and that prompted a high-speed chase. Marin County Sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers joined the chase along the way.
The suspect sped southward along Miller Avenue, turning on Shoreline Highway, then onto southbound Freeway 101, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and finally to Crissy Field in San Francisco, where police caught up with him.
Mill Valley officers arrested Robert Koichi Maynard, 33 of Oakland, and he was taken to Marin County Jail where he remains in custody in lieu of $200,000 bond.
Maynard is facing open charges for vehicle theft, failure to obey an officer, and violation of probation. A preliminary court hearing was scheduled for June 20.
