A 23-year-old Crystal City man was arrested for allegedly fleeing from police in a stolen truck, nearly hitting two Crystal City Police officers and causing a series of accidents, ending with a crash at Gordon’s Stoplight Drive-in in Crystal City, the Crystal City Police Department reported.
At 1:17 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 6), Crystal City officers were dispatched to the 100 block of Holdinghausen Drive about a disturbance, Police Chief Chad Helms said.
“The suspect was reported to be making verbal threats toward family members,” Helms said.
When Crystal City Police arrived on the scene, the suspect allegedly was driving toward them in a 2005 Chevrolet truck, and “the man’s father was running up the roadway waving his arms frantically and pointing at the suspect (in the vehicle),” Helms reported.
Helms said the truck reportedly was stolen from the suspect’s uncle. The suspect stopped the truck, and officers attempted to block it with their patrol vehicles, the report said.
“As one of our officers was attempting to exit his vehicle, the suspect vehicle took off, nearly striking the officer,” Helms said.
Officers pursued the truck, and during the chase, it nearly struck another police officer’s vehicle head on, the report said.
“The suspect then drove off the roadway in the 1500 block of Crystal Heights Road into some fields where officers were unable to follow the truck and lost the vehicle,” Helms said.
Officers were still looking for the suspect when they were notified of a series of accidents at the intersection of Bailey Road and Truman Boulevard. Officers arrived on the scene to find the truck the suspect had been driving abandoned at the intersection and two other vehicles damaged from crashes. There were no injuries, Helms said.
Witnesses said the truck was “traveling southbound on Truman Boulevard approaching Bailey Road at a high rate of speed,” and the suspect allegedly attempted to “pass one vehicle on the left and sideswiped the driver’s side door,” Helms said.
After that, the suspect lost control of the truck, and “the vehicle went spinning out of control through the intersection.” A tire then came off the truck and struck another vehicle, which had a child inside. The truck then “hit a set of parking blocks and damaged the asphalt on the parking lot of the Stoplight restaurant,” Helms said.
He said witnesses told police the suspect ran off, and the witnesses told officers the direction the man had fled. Then, officers heard a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper yelling from the woods behind the buildings on the north side of the 500 block of Bailey Road.
“The highway patrolman had made contact with the suspect. We were able to assist and take the man into custody,” Helms said.
The suspect was transported to the Crystal City Police Department, where he was booked and then released to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, which wanted him on an outstanding warrant for a probation violation, Helms said.
Crystal City Police will seek charges against the man through the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for two counts of assault on a police officer, endangering the welfare of a child, tampering with a motor vehicle, resisting arrest, five counts of felony property damage, leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident, careless and imprudent driving, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and other traffic charges.