A truck driver is criticizing the police response but applauding his wife’s driving skills after a murder suspect attempted to steal their semi truck as they drove past multiple squad cars. 

Truck driver Matthew Acevedo was riding in the passenger seat as his team-driver and wife drove the semi truck on Sunday, May 18th when a man suddenly jumped onto the side of their rig. 

“We had no idea what was going on, but it was not law enforcement,” Acevedo said to Fox 10. “It was Mike. He had a flashlight, and he was trying to slow us down. It wasn’t until about 15, 20 feet away she realized he had a gun, and he was waving it at her.”

28-year-old Mike Thomas was on the run from police along Interstate 65 in Alabama after committing crimes connected to a murder in Georgia. Officers were pursuing him, but Acevedo says that the police response was not enough to prevent his wife from being hurt by the wanted criminal. 

“He repeatedly was hitting the window,” he said. “When he tried to aim at either one of us, she would do hard braking maneuvering to keep him off balance and I was getting slammed into the dashboard. I finally got to her purse where we keep our weapon, and she rolled down the window and I fired outside of the vehicle because I didn’t want to hit my wife. Once I ran out of rounds, he popped back up out of nowhere he was holding with one hand onto the mirror, and he pistol whipped her several times across her body.”

Acevedo says that Thomas also fired a few shots before giving up and running into the woods, where he was eventually caught by a SWAT team using tracker dogs and air units. Despite the eventual capture, Acevedo believes the police response should have been better managed. 

“Even with him on the side of the truck wearing a highlighter t-shirt, and our truck is white, none of the law enforcement, I don’t know what agencies were involved in this manhunt to capture him, but nobody saw him, and my wife was blaring the horn as we passed up all the cop cars,” he said.

Acevedo’s wife had to get several stitches after the incident, and their semi truck is now filled with bullet holes from the encounter. 

“I wish I could’ve been the one in the seat dealing with the situation but it’s just luck of the draw,” he said.