The driver led police on a multi-county chase in a stolen truck before being stopped
July 17, 2023 at 21:11
Running from the police is never a good idea but on rare occasions, people get away with it. In those cases, the suspect is often piloting a car that has the horsepower to gap police quickly. In the case of one suspect in Tennessee, his choice of getaway vehicle, a stolen Ford F-250, proved to be less than ideal. Did we mention that the chase ends with him upside down?
Police from Knox and Sevier counties in East Tennessee were already in pursuit of the truck and its driver when a third county, Jefferson, joined the chase. Another agency, the White Pine Police Department, managed to use a spike strip successfully to deflate the front passenger tire of the truck. Despite that damage, the suspect continued to drive.
Minutes later, an officer slid up next to the truck and successfully used a PIT maneuver to send it out of control. That damaged tire left the already unwieldy vehicle even less capable of correcting the slide. As a result, the truck’s momentum sent it rolling down the road. The officer who initiated the PIT maneuver says that training was key to the stop.
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“We’re trained on basic pit maneuvers in the police academy,” Tim Herzog of the Jefferson County police department explained to ABC 6. “That was a long time ago for me but I’ve been in several of them, and used them a couple of times. So my goal was to do the least amount of damage possible to both vehicles. Of course that didn’t work for him.”
That’s putting it lightly of course as the F-250 rolled one-and-a-half times before coming to rest on its roof. “Our main objective at that point in time, especially when he crossed the wrong side of the roadway is to stop him from injuring anybody innocent, any of our citizens or just travelers on the interstate,” Herzog continued.
The 59-year-old driver already had multiple outstanding warrants and now faces a number of new charges associated with the chase. He was initially transported to the hospital in stable condition despite the crash.