By Wes Clement
Pine Bluff Commercial
A passenger who injured himself by jumping from a stolen vehicle that was being pursued by police was found by police K-9 units in a wooded area Thursday morning.
The driver was later arrested.
Dispatchers alerted law enforcement at 7:15 a.m. a passenger wearing a black T-shirt had fled into an area of trees near the intersection of Interstate 530 and U.S. 65.
The police pursuit began near Redfield heading south on I-530.
The driver had been driving a Chevrolet truck reported stolen. When officers located the vehicle, it was unoccupied. The driver was found and taken into custody shortly thereafter.
A Redfield police officer informed dispatch a similar truck had just been reported stolen in that city. White Hall Police Chief Noel Foster said Assistant Police Chief Richard Wingard spotted the vehicle while observing Dollarway Road traffic.
“The stolen vehicle drove past him, and as they saw Assistant Chief Wingard, they immediately began accelerating,” Foster said.
He said the driver was pursued at 50-75 mph through White Hall and when the chase continued on I-530, speeds reached 100 mph.
Arkansas Department of Correction K-9 handlers were requested at the scene at nearly 7:30 a.m. With the dogs’ assistance, police arrested the man at 8:30 a.m. and escorted him from the woods to one of two awaiting ambulances.
Canines Ann and Vena, specially trained for human sensing rather than drug detection, were used during the incident, Lt. Dennis Reep of ADC narcotics division said.
The search team split into two groups each including a dog, handler and person to monitor GPS locations of the trained animals as they hunted.
“We have Garmin GPS collars we put on the dogs before they went into the woods,” Reep said. “We had a person with a hand-held GPS device in the woods to keep track of the dogs and another receiver with law enforcement to help them get ahead of them and know where they are heading.
“Basically, the dogs were on the ground for about thirty minutes,” he said
A vehicle driven by Bobby Bolding, Pine Bluff High School head football coach, was struck by the speeding truck before the suspects fled police on foot.
“Everyone did a good job,” Foster said. “In my observation, all of the agencies worked together very well,” Foster said. “When law enforcement agencies work together, there is usually a good ending.”
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Grant County Constable Chris Strom (left) White Hall Police Officer Brian Hornsby, center and Assistant Chief Lt. Ricky Wingard, right, of the White Hall Police Department, bring one of the two suspects out of the woods after a brief manhunt Thursday morning along I-530 and the Martha Mitchell Expressway by Exit 35. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald
