Charges: Oakdale cop car stolen by suspect held 2 long guns as officers gave chase

The marked Oakdale squad car stolen Monday by a suicidal assault suspect held two long guns as the man raced around the east metro suburb trying to evade officers, according to criminal charges.

Carter J. Favors Jr., 21, of Eagan, was charged Tuesday in Washington County District Court with assault with a motor vehicle, auto theft, interference with emergency communication and fleeing police in connection with the incident that started late Monday morning in Richard Walton Park and was first detected by a police officer looking out a headquarters window.

Favors spotted an unoccupied and unlocked marked squad car — keys in the ignition — and got behind the wheel, according to the charges. Inside were two guns: a 12-gauge shotgun and a .556-caliber rifle.

Michelle Stark, an Oakdale officer who acts as her department's spokeswoman and was among those in pursuit of Flowers, said the guns remained locked the entire time he was in the squad car but declined to say whether he could have freed them and armed himself.

Favors remains jailed and has yet to secure an attorney.

According to the criminal complaint:

Favors' assault victim, his 30-year-old girlfriend, told police that he "was talking about killing himself and suicide by cop," the charges read.

Favors continued driving in the park "in a reckless manner off-road" as officers, one in a marked squad car with emergency lights flashing and siren blaring, pursued, the complaint read.

Favors drove out of the park, sped north on Hadley Avenue and crashed through a wooden fence in the 6900 block of N. 27th Street. Favors climbed atop the car holding a large piece of lumber from the fence before running from officers and carrying a cellphone as if it were a gun, at the same time urging police to shoot him.

He got in the squad car, ran a stop sign, reached 75 miles per hour on Geneva Avenue and nearly hit a motorcyclist. All the while, he was on the squad radio and was "taunting officers and yelling ... disrupting other officers trying to communicate regarding the pursuit," the complaint read.

About 10 minutes into the pursuit, a Woodbury police squad car strategically bumped the stolen squad car and brought it to a halt in the 6500 block of N. 15th Street in Oakdale.

Favors ran to a city public works truck, jumped in and clutched the steering wheel with one hand while trying to put the vehicle in gear with the other. He was apprehended in the truck, with the help of a shot from a stun gun, as he repeated his wish for police to shoot him.