Deputies taze suspect in golf cart theft

GREEN VALLEY--Two Pima County Sheriff's deputies were involved in an altercation with an alleged golf cart thief early Tuesday morning during which the suspect was tazed and a deputy sustained minor injuries.

Around 3 a.m. a resident of the 3000 block of West Curly Horn Road in Sahuarita reported that a man calling himself "Vaughn" had knocked on her door and asked to use the phone. When the resident told the man she would make a call for him, as she was reluctant to let the man into her home, the man left.

As deputies were headed to the residence to investigate the suspicious person call, they noticed a man dressed in dark clothing driving a golf cart in the eastbound lane of Helmet Peak Road in Sahuarita, just east of Avenida Cinco.

Remote area, early hour

Given the relative remoteness of the area and the early hour, deputies stopped the man in the golf cart for questioning.

The driver, upon seeing the deputies, stopped, got out of the cart, and began to walk away east, according to a sheriff's report on the incident.

The suspect did not respond to calls to stop, so one of the deputies pulled his tazer but the shot flew off into the roadway. At that point the suspect stopped, the report says.

The suspect then refused to turn around, so a deputy took hold of his shirt collar and pushed him toward a patrol vehicle.

As the deputies were attempting to place the suspect in handcuffs, the suspect wrestled free and ran away south into the desert. After a brief chase, a deputy tackled the suspect in a rocky area on the edge of the roadway, but the suspect continued to fight and strike the deputy, the report says.

Meantime, the second deputy shot his tazer into the suspect's back. The scuffle continued, however, and the taze fell out, so the deputy shot the suspect again, once on the suspect's buttock and once on his upper thigh, thus ending the struggle.

During the fight a deputy lost his glasses and sustained a small injury above his right eye, the report says.

After an investigation, deputies learned that the golf cart had been stolen earlier that night from Serr's Towing on West Helmet Peak Road.

The suspect, 22-year-old Vaughn Lorenzo Woods, was arrested and booked into the Pima County Jail on charges of theft of means of transportation and assault.

Woods, whose most recent address is in Tucson, told investigators that he had been out looking for a friend when he became cold and tired and so took the golf cart from Serr's to drive home, the report says.

Woods was still in custody on Wednesday with bail set at $7,500.

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