Pitt van stolen, crashed into gas station

A stolen University of Pittsburgh van crashed into a gas station in Oakland Friday morning. No… A stolen University of Pittsburgh van crashed into a gas station in Oakland Friday morning. No one was harmed in the incident.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said that the Pitt plumbing van was stolen from behind Posvar Hall, and eventually crashed into the Sunoco gas station at Boulevard of the Allies and Craft Avenue. It came at the tail end of a number of incidents that stretched through much of Central Oakland over the course of 15 minutes Friday morning.

City police said that Pitt police handled the incident. Fedele said the driver, Derek E. Sharpe, 29, of Natrona Heights, is being held in Allegheny County Jail on a number of charges related to several incidents on Friday — all of which occurred within about 15 minutes of each other.

At about 8 a.m., Pitt police received a call from UPMC Presbyterian to help remove a white man in his late 20s from the premises. While responding to that call, police received another call for a white man who attempted to carjack a woman at the intersection of O’Hara Street and Thackeray Avenue.

Then a man matching the previous description tried to take a woman’s car keys from her near the PNC bank on Fifth Avenue, Fedele said.

Then, Fedele said that Property and Facilities Management called to say a white Pitt plumbing van had been stolen from Lot A behind Posvar Hall.

Finally, Pitt police received a call when the van hit the gas station, about a quarter mile from Posvar Hall. The driver, a white man, then fled the scene before being apprehended by construction workers and Pitt police nearby, Fedele said.

Fedele said that the description of the man in all the incidents Friday morning matched, and Sharpe appeared impaired when he was arrested.

Locations indicated are approximate.