Officers charged the 20-year-old driver with 12 separate offenses including theft by receiving and battery
2 hours ago
- A 20-year-old Dodge Charger driver led Arkansas State Police on a lengthy GTA-style chase.
- He managed to escape four times before officers caught him.
- In the process, the police rear-ended one innocent motorist at over 70 mph.
Some artists don’t know when to put down the paintbrush and some suspects don’t know when to stop running. Ideally, they wouldn’t run at all but in this story, the driver managed to get away four different times before finally getting caught. In the process, he left a wake of destruction that included a police officer ramming an innocent motorist on the road.
Late in the evening of July 4, Arkansas police gave chase when a Dodge Charger Scat Pack driver fled a traffic stop. Speeds reached 135 mph (217 km/h) almost immediately on the highway and both the suspect and the pursuing officer narrowly avoided crashes. Roughly four minutes into the chase the Dodge has a healthy gap on officers. At that point, the lead officer has a tire blowout and is out of the chase.
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Subsequent officers spot the suspect and catch back up. This time though the suspect exits the highway and manages to get some distance by passing on the shoulder. Officers rightly slow down to avoid an accident across several intersections but the Charger is gone. All that effort to avoid an accident goes out the window shortly though.
A third officer, Hunter Glover, waiting down the road sees the suspect and gives chase again. This time though it’s short-lived as Glover inexplicably smashes into the back of an innocent motorist at 73 mph (117 km/h) with what appears to be almost no attempt to avoid the accident. Before calling for help for the bystanders, Glover calls out “I’m crashed out, go get him!” Meanwhile, the vehicle he hit is on its side in a ditch.
Almost 90 minutes later officers spot the Charger again and once again give chase. This time though they get a PIT attempt in. The driver however skillfully evades the tactic with some countersteer and the trooper’s Charger ends up disabled instead. Some minutes later a fifth officer spots the car, gives chase, manages to successfully PIT the car, and then has to give chase on foot.
Ultimately, ASP gets its man, Tylawrence Thomas, 20, and charges him with theft by receiving, battery 2nd degree, fleeing on foot, criminal use of a prohibited weapon, perpetrating a crime with a machine gun, speeding more than 15 mph over, reckless driving, improper display of license plate, first-degree battery, felony fleeing with serious physical injury, felony fleeing with a substantial danger of death, and a seatbelt violation.