Pensacola Police SWAT members were called out this morning after a man wanted on a felony warrant ran from an officer during a traffic stop and hid inside the attic of an apartment.
Brandon Wiggins, 33, of Pensacola was charged with obstruction without violence, driving while license suspended third or subsequent offense and attaching license plate not assigned. He also was charged with the original felony warrant of failure to appear for having an invalid driver’s license, grand theft auto, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and possession of narcotics.
Also a woman – Rachel Wentworth, 33 - who was inside Apartment 2101 D where Wiggins hid in the attic was charged with obstruction without violence. She exited her apartment about 1 ½ hours after SWAT showed up at the scene, claimed she didn’t know the suspect and that he wasn’t inside her apartment.
The incident began around 6:49 a.m. when Officer Austin Abdelhadi saw the suspect’s car in the area of Jordan and Tarragona streets and ran the license tag, which had expired in March 2019 and was assigned to a gray Ford SUV; however, Wiggins was driving a white Lexus sedan. Abdelhadi then activated the lights on his cruiser and Wiggins pulled into the driveway of apartments in the 2100 block of North Hayne Street. Wiggins stopped the car, got out and ran inside an upstairs apartment with Abdelhadi in pursuit. When Wiggins refused to comply with officer demands to exit, Abdelhadi radioed for back-up officers.
Abdelhadi found Wiggins’ name on some documents inside the car. Officers learned about the felony warrant and confirmed he was known to be violent when Wiggins’ name was entered into a database. At that point, SWAT was called to the scene.
Around 10:45 a.m. Wiggins came outside from the woman’s apartment and surrendered to police.