Suspect in San Francisco assault threw ‘device’ at cops

A maniac who believed he was playing a real-life version of “Grand Theft Auto” led San Francisco cops on a wild car chase in which he detonated a pipe bomb and ignited a Molotov cocktail, a city official said.

The crazed man started his video game-inspired rampage at Saints Peter and Paul Church on Sunday where he received communion before assaulting a member of the congregation and was chased out of the house of worship, a pastor told local outlet KGO.

After the assault at the church, police responded to the scene and spotted the suspect driving away.

As cops pursued the suspect across the Bay Bridge, the unidentified man was seen hurling “suspicious devices” from the window of his car, police said.

The San Francisco Police Officers Association, the city’s largest police union, posted on X that officers in Sunday’s chase “encountered a suspect with an improvised device.”

City supervisor Aaron Peskin, who was briefed on the incident, told the San Francisco Standard that the assault suspect detonated a pipe bomb in the 1500 block of Jones Street and set off a Molotov cocktail on 8th Street.

The chase continued onto the freeway and was taken over by California Highway Patrol troopers, who ultimately cornered and arrested the suspect in the suburb of Martinez. At the time of his arrest, Peskin said the suspect asked “how many points he got in his Grand Theft Auto game.”

Peskin told the Standard “In 23 years of doing this stuff, this is probably the most bizarre.”

“Grand Theft Auto” is a best-selling video game franchise in which players can commit crimes and random acts of violence, including police chases, in a large, open-world environment.

Officers deployed a bomb-seeking robot to search the trunk of the suspect’s wrecked silver-colored sedan, as seen on a video aired on KTVU. A CHP spokesperson told KGO that the driver did not throw anything from his car at the troopers, but they did find unspecified “items” inside his car.

There were no reports of injuries or property damage resulting from the pursuit, police said.