Stop Sticks and Pit Maneuver Bring Female Car Thief to a Stop on Seward Highway


Alaska State Troopers reported on Wednesday morning that they had apprehended the female suspect that stole a 2016 BMW and fled south on the Seward Highway at just after 11 pm on Tuesday night.

Troopers were notified by Anchorage police that they had received a report of a black 2016 BMW stolen as it was left running in the Anchorage area. The owner told police that she had started her vehicle and was warming it up as she sat in a vehicle next to it. The caller said that while it was warming up, a female suspect ran up to the idling vehicle, looked inside before jumping in and driving off with the BMW.

The vehicle was last seen driving southbound on the Seward Highway.

At five minutes after midnight on Wednesday morning, an AST K9 team on patrol near mile 63 of the Seward Highway spotted the stolen vehicle still heading southbound with no taillights, swerving on the highway, and traveling above the speed limit.

The trooper vehicle activated its lights and siren, but the driver ignored the trooper and continued south. Officers ahead of the BMW deployed “stop sticks,” which succeeded in deflating two of the tires. But, the vehicle continued fleeing until a “pit maneuver” was performed which brought the vehicle to a stop. The driver, later identified as 30-year-old Nicole Y. Collett, of Anchorage, was not finished and bailed out of the vehicle, fleeing on foot into the woods.

Troopers report that Collett was eventually apprehended and transported to the Wildwood Pretrial Facility in Kenai and remanded there without bail on charges of Vehicle Theft I, Reckless Driving, Failure to Stop I, and DUI-Drugs.