A motorcycle thief got arrested after his stolen bike ran out of gas, leaving him a sitting duck as police deputies ran out of their vehicle to handcuff him, leading to charges of fleeing and eluding, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
For background, on August 6, 2025, a man in Illinois got caught after stealing a motorcycle when he apparently forgot to check the gas gauge, going on to putter out in the middle of the road after racing across a bridge with the Peoria County, Illinois, Police in hot pursuit. The man, identified as Donald Shaw, ended up arrested.
Dashcam footage shared by the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office shows Shaw picking up speed as he tries to evade the police, who followed him down Harmon Highway. As the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page put it, “Unfortunately for him, the stolen motorcycle ran out of gas while attempting to flee from our deputy.”
In the dashcam footage, Shaw can be seen slowing down in the middle of an intersection, leaving him to attempt to make a run for it. However, without his stolen ride, the thief could only make it a few feet before he was wrestled to the ground by a deputy.
Moreover, press accounts confirmed that Shaw was hit with additional charges for driving 21-25 miles per hour over the speed limit and not having a valid registration for the stolen vehicle. In the dashcam footage, Shaw appears to have been speeding excessively while fleeing from the police, who had to race to catch up with the thief.
Additionally, when the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office shared footage of Shaw’s arrest on Facebook, they clarified that Shaw was arrested for “felony warrants, fleeing and eluding, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.” The video of Shaw running out of gas and getting tackled was viewed over 100,000 times in just two days.
Importantly, Shaw’s arrest follows a reported sharp increase in motorcycle thefts in the US, with statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau indicating that incidents increased by 7% from 2021 to 2022 — the third year in a row of steady increases. The bureau’s president and CEO, David Glawe, said, “While we witness the rise in vehicle thefts year after year, we are encouraging all owners, and especially motorcycle riders, to take great care in protecting their property.”
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Continuing, Glawe advised motorcycle owners, “Even though you can’t completely control when criminals target you or your vehicle, you can help deter would-be thieves by taking proactive, easy, and effective steps to prevent these thefts.” Moreover, the NICB reported that California was the state with the most reported motorcycle thefts in 2022, accounting for 30% of all of the bike thefts in the US that year.
Watch the dashcam footage of Shaw’s arrest:
Featured image credit: video screengrab