The fatal ending to a Broward police chase left bystanders watching deputies and divers search dark water for a second victim.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — People staying and working at a Fort Lauderdale marina said a stolen van smashed through a gate and vanished into a canal Sunday night, leaving rescuers to pull out the driver and later recover a woman who died at a hospital.
What many witnesses first saw as a loud crash at Yacht Haven Park & Marina soon became a rescue operation with officers in the water, divers searching near dock pilings and ambulances waiting by the road. Authorities later said the van was being driven by Michael Malik Harvey, who is accused of fleeing deputies in a stolen vehicle from Miami-Dade County before the crash. By Monday, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Harvey was facing felony murder and several other charges after the female passenger was pronounced dead.
At the marina, the final seconds of the chase came without much warning. Witness Liam Lenihan told Local 10 that he heard a sudden boom and saw the van tear through the gate, scattering metal before heading straight into the waterway connected to the South Fork New River. Another witness, James Bardwell, said the van passed between two pilings and sank fast. He said police were close behind and moved almost at once to reach the driver, who surfaced near the vehicle. Bardwell said officers pulled him from the water and started CPR. The crash happened shortly before 8 p.m., according to television reports built from witness accounts and agency statements, and it turned a quiet marina property on West State Road 84 into an emergency scene lit by patrol vehicles, dive teams and fire rescue units.
The most painful part for bystanders was what happened after the driver came out. Authorities said Harvey told officers there was another person inside, and rescue crews went back into the canal to search for the passenger. Lenihan told reporters the woman was not pulled out until roughly 15 to 20 minutes later, though officials have not publicly confirmed that exact time frame. Aninta Taylor, another witness, said the rescue was “kind of disturbing,” a brief description that matched the mood at the scene as crews worked in dark water beside boats and marina structures. Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue transported both people to Broward Health Medical Center. Harvey survived with what authorities described as non-life-threatening injuries. The woman later died at the hospital. As of Tuesday, officials had not released her identity, her age or where she had been before the chase began.
Investigators say the story started miles away in West Park at about 7:25 or 7:30 p.m., when a Broward deputy saw the white GMC van being driven recklessly in the area of Southwest 33rd Avenue. A tag check showed the van had been reported stolen out of Miami-Dade County, authorities said. When the deputy tried to stop it, Harvey allegedly drove off and struck the deputy’s marked vehicle. Officials said that deputy stayed behind, but another officer later saw the van near West Hallandale Beach Boulevard west of Interstate 95. Investigators say Harvey then turned the van toward a Pembroke Pines officer, forcing evasive action and deepening the criminal case before the chase reached Fort Lauderdale. That sequence matters because it helps explain why the charge list goes beyond vehicle theft and includes aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer as well as aggravated fleeing and eluding causing death.
The marina setting also shapes how the public is seeing the case. Unlike a highway crash, this one ended in a place where parked boats, gates, RV traffic and water left little margin for escape. Witnesses described emergency workers moving between the dock area and the road as the van sank and crews tried to locate the passenger. Video later aired by Local 10 showed law enforcement activity during the pursuit and crews pulling the van from the canal afterward. By then, the case had shifted from a rescue effort to parallel investigations into the chase, the death and the evidence left in and around the submerged vehicle. Officials have not publicly said whether divers recovered personal belongings, whether the van’s windows were open or closed when it entered the water, or whether a medical examiner has determined the exact cause and manner of the passenger’s death.
By Monday evening, the sheriff’s office said Harvey was facing felony murder, aggravated fleeing and eluding causing death, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, grand theft of a motor vehicle and leaving the scene of a crash involving an occupied vehicle. The agency said the broader investigation remains active. WSVN reported that the Broward Sheriff’s Office is handling the initial and homicide investigations, while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is reviewing the in-custody portion of the case. Court records and a full arrest narrative are expected to fill in open questions, including the passenger’s identity, the relationship between the two people in the van and the exact route the pursuit took before it ended at the marina. Until then, the public record remains a mix of witness accounts, agency summaries and short video clips from the scene.
For those who watched it happen, the lasting image was not the chase route across Broward but the stillness after impact: broken gate pieces near the entrance, officers scanning black water with flashlights and rescuers trying to save two people pulled from a van that had sunk within moments. The case now stands at the point where eyewitness memory and formal evidence begin to meet. Bystanders have described shock, speed and confusion; investigators will now test those impressions against video, dispatch logs, dive recovery details and medical findings. The next steps are expected to come through Harvey’s first court proceedings and through the release of additional records identifying the passenger and explaining the final minutes before the van went underwater.
Authorities have not closed the case, and the next update is expected when court records, an arrest affidavit or the woman’s identification are made public.
Author note: Last updated March 24, 2026.