Her boyfriend said he stole a cruiser in which they rode from Camden across the Delaware River, but once in Philadelphia, Shayna E. Sykes took matters into her own hands, police say.
A Macungie woman's joy ride in March with and without her boyfriend in stolen police cruisers in Camden and Philadelphia ended with her pleading guilty today to a variety of charges, according to court papers.
Shayna E. Sykes, 24, pleaded guilty in Philadelphia to aggravated assault, simple assault, receiving stolen property, eluding police, possession of an instrument of crime and DUI, among other charges, court papers say.
Sentencing is scheduled Sept. 16 before Judge Charles A. Ehrlich, court papers say. Aggravated assault can carry a two-year mandatory sentence, according to Pennsylvania's criminal code.
Sykes and her boyfriend, Blake Bills, also of Macungie, were on a three-day heroin binge and agreed to go out with a bang, officials said. Bills is still awaiting trial on a variety of charges. A status conference was scheduled for today.
“The plan was just to get a car. Everything else was improv,” Bills said in a police statement put into evidence at his preliminary hearing in March. “I wanted to be warm and mobile and I saw a police car.”
The couple, who have a young child, told police they had been using heroin and cocaine and sleeping on the street in Camden. Bills spotted the idling cruiser and jumped in, he said. He then struck an officer who tried to intervene, breaking his leg, authorities said.
Both expressed remorse for the wild chase, which was caught on videotape and widely viewed online.
After stealing the cruiser, they heard radio reports that police feared they would hop on the bridge to Philadelphia, so they decided to do just that, the statements said.Bills then allegedly drove 50 to 60 mph along narrow streets in north Philadelphia.
After Bills busted a window and blew out a tire on the Camden cruiser, the car was stopped and he was tackled after a brief chase, police said. But Sykes allegedly saw her moment and stole a Philadelphia cruiser.
“I thought, if he could outrun the police, I could pick him up,” she allegedly told police later that day.
Sykes' victims include a Philadelphia woman who fell and bumped her head as Sykes brushed by her in a speeding cruiser, and a delivery driver left with an injured shoulder when Sykes struck his box truck as he tried to move out of the way, prosecutors said.