A 26-year-old man allegedly entered an occupied Plant City home, stole a vehicle and keys, then grabbed a vape from a gas station before deputies tracked him to a residential pool deck. Zachary Brooks now faces a lengthy list of charges stemming from the Saturday morning incident, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Keys and a Car Taken From an Occupied Home
Around 8 a.m. on Oct. 10, Brooks went to an occupied residence on Alafia Hills Drive and stole keys and a vehicle, according to tampabay28.com. From there, he allegedly drove to a gas station on Paul Buchman Highway, where he reached through the sales window and stole a vape before fleeing the scene, per the same report. WSVN 7News later reported that the gas-station stop set off the pursuit that would ultimately lead deputies to him.
Deputies later spotted the stolen car near Jerry Smith Road and Trapnell Road, nearly ten miles from the home it was taken from, according to a report from wfla.com. With assistance from the sheriff's office Aviation Unit, deputies kept visual contact with the vehicle until it stopped on East Trapnell Road, the station's report states.
Chase Ends on a Pool Deck
Once the vehicle stopped, Brooks fled on foot and was arrested on the back pool deck of a nearby residence, per the same account. Aviation Unit video reportedly showed Brooks exiting the vehicle during the pursuit and running into a nearby home, while bodycam footage captured deputies finding him hiding on a pool deck just after 9:40 a.m., according to WSVN 7News.
Brooks was charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle, three counts of burglary, fleeing to elude at high speeds, reckless driving, driving with a suspended or revoked license, resisting an officer, and petit theft, the article notes. A separate report from cbs12.com notes that Brooks was arrested by Plant City police on Sept. 5 in an earlier case involving allegations including resisting an officer without violence, false imprisonment, and domestic battery.
A Broader Dip in Vehicle Thefts Nationwide
The case lands amid a national decline in auto theft. The National Insurance Crime Bureau reported that 659,900 vehicles were stolen across the United States in 2025, according to the Insurance Information Institute. That figure marks a 35.4 percent decrease from 2023, when vehicle thefts hit their highest volume in more than 40 years, the institute reports, while the 2024 total was itself 16.7 percent lower than 2023. Hyundai vehicles experienced the highest theft rates in 2025, per the same data.
Hillsborough County has also seen larger-scale auto theft operations in recent memory. The sheriff's office previously said it busted an alleged theft ring spanning several states that targeted high-end cars, according to a separate wfla.com report, with investigators linking the operation to an estimated $388,000 in stolen vehicles brought to Riverview, dismantled and sold for parts.
