Stolen semi involved in Orlando VA standoff leads Ocala police on chase

Video released Thursday shows Ocala police chasing a stolen semi truck driven by a man accused in an hour's long standoff at the Orlando VA Medical Center Monday, according to officers.

The video shows the truck driving recklessly as he fled officers in a tri-county pursuit that started in Marion County.

In a statement, Ocala police said officers began to follow Edward Dial, 45, after he hit an unoccupied Ocala police car with the stolen semi truck around 5:15 p.m. near the 1300 block of SE 17th St. The semi truck was reported stolen out of Georgia, police said.

The video at the top of this story shows dashcam views of the pursuit, provided by Ocala police. In it, the truck can be seen blowing through red-lights, dodging traffic and at one point discarding something from out of the driver’s side window.

Toward the end of the video, after multiple other agencies became involved in the pursuit, a law enforcement officer can be heard describing what they were seeing as “a parade of cars.”

According to Ocala police, Dial stopped the semi in Lake Nona, near the Orlando VA Medical Center, about 90 miles from where the pursuit began. Up to this point, Dial had led law enforcement through Marion and Lake counties before entering Orange, where a standoff ended with an Orange County SWAT team taking Dial into custody, records show.

According to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit, the truck was registered stolen out of Gwinnett County, Georgia.

Dial, who remains in Orange County for the time being, faces charges of fleeing and eluding with disregard to public safety, leaving the scene of a crash with property damage and grand theft of a motor vehicle.