The cops and press say they only want to "talk" when they plaster pictures of him and his car all over the TV and newspapers so that he hopefully won't get too spooked if he sees it.
I'm sure the conversation at the police station is a real pleasant one. < /sarcasm >
I'm sure some pretty expert interrogators are working him over right now in a non-coercive way. They have to get what they can out of him ASAP. Arresting, mugging and fingerprinting him might spook him into clamming up and demanding some mouthpiece to hide behind.
Leni
He sprayed a cop in the face with pepper spray at a traffic stop (LONG before the Smart abduction) and fled.
This conveys two things:
1) The cops HATE people that attack them and are quite happy to use any association with the Smart case to get this guy, and
2) Stealing several cars to flee the police and evading the police prior to that isn't any sort of evidence at all that this guy is actually connected to the Smart case.