A woman has been arrested after an ambulance was taken from outside the Avenged Sevenfold show in Phoenix.
A 24-year-old woman has been booked on suspicion of DUI and theft of means of transportation after a Phoenix Fire Department ambulance was driven away from outside Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre on Thursday night, while Avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte were playing.
Grace Marie Vicente was arrested near the scene of a collision less than two miles from the venue. She has not been convicted of anything, and the allegations against her have not been tested in court.
Phoenix Police say that at around 11pm on 27 August, a woman got into the driver’s seat of an ambulance parked near 83rd Avenue and Encanto Boulevard, close to the amphitheatre, and drove off in it.
The vehicle collided with a Ford F-150 near 75th Avenue and Osborn Road shortly afterwards. The driver of the pickup was taken to hospital with injuries police described as not life-threatening. Officers located the woman and took her into custody.
“Officers observed signs of impairment, and she was later booked for DUI and theft of means of transportation,” Sgt. Sheree Lee said in a media advisory.
How the ambulance came to be driveable is not settled. Several media outlets reported that the keys had been left in the ignition while crew were on a call.
The Phoenix Police account carried by the Arizona Daily Independent says the opposite: that the ambulance was running but the keys were not in the vehicle, and that the crew were not on a call at all, the unit having been staged at the venue and available for service. Prosecutors reportedly told the court the same, with paramedics saying they had stepped away to fetch a gurney and returned to find the ambulance gone.
The investigation is continuing and police have not released further detail.
Prosecutors said at her initial appearance that Vicente works as a correctional officer in New Mexico and had told them she blacked out.
Her lawyer confirmed she had travelled to Phoenix for the concert, and said: “She came here to attend a concert … and things just ended up happening that are completely out of her normal nature.”
Theft of means of transportation is a Class 3 felony under Arizona law, carrying a sentencing range of roughly two and a half to eight and three-quarter years for a first offence. DUI is a Class 1 misdemeanour with a mandatory minimum jail term, which increases where blood alcohol concentration meets the state’s extreme DUI threshold.
The show was part of the North American co-headline run Avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte are working through together. Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, on North 83rd Avenue, holds a little over 20,000 across its pavilion and lawn. Neither band has commented, and there is nothing to suggest the incident affected the show itself.
