STORY UPDATE: Men fleeing arrest hit utility pole, crash in ditch and then disappear
Two men escape,
then crash vehicle
after fleeing early
a.m. traffic stop
by Teresa Eubanks, CLJNews.com
Two men fled an early morning traffic stop near Clarksville around 2:45 a.m. CT before racing into Liberty County Sunday morning, where they left their damaged vehicle behind and fled on foot.
The pair were returning from a concert in Bay County when a Calhoun County officer attempted to pull them over for speeding.
It had already been a busy night for Cpl.William Peterson. Before the 2021 dark grey Hyundai flew past him, he had already issued tickets to drivers going 91, 92 and 98 mph.
Peterson was stationed at SR 20 and CR 1 when the Hyundai raced past him at 98 mph while traveling eastbound towards Clarksville.
“I pulled out behind them and turned my lights on but they didn’t yield,” Peterson said. The driver didn’t respond when he activated his siren. “He was at 100-plus mph and still pulling away from me,” he said. At one point, the vehicle crossed the center line of the road where the driver went around a car traveling ahead of him.
Peterson alerted the Blountstown Police Department and the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office as he continued the pursuit.
“Luckily, all three lights were green as he came into Blountstown and there was little traffic,” he said. The high speed chase continued across the Trammell Bridge.
Peterson said he was about to end the pursuit as he came into Bristol when the driver suddenly turned onto SR 12, went airborne through the Dollar General parking lot and just missed hitting a new utility pole. That pole had been replaced just a couple of weeks earlier when a Jacksonville man drove into it, causing a brief power outage.
“I made a left on SR 12 and went behind the store, thinking that they had crashed,” Peterson said. “The driver came out from the back of the store, went onto my side of the road and attempted to hit me head-on.” When he tried to move his patrol car to the right, the other driver followed. He notified Liberty County deputies and they joined the pursuit around 4:40 a.m.
The driver turned north onto SR 12 and sped away as smoke and debris began coming off the tires.
“He blew a tire and abruptly cut to the right – missing another light pole – before hitting an embankment and going into a culvert just north of the Garden of Eden Road on SR 12,” according to Peterson. He saw the two men get out of the car and run into the treeline. The driver lost his shoes as he jumped out of the vehicle.
Deputies from both counties were joined by dog tracking teams from Calhoun and Liberty Correctional Institutions and the Florida Highway Patrol drone team, which conducted aerial searches.
“The Liberty Corrections canine team ran the two individuals for approximately three miles paralleling SR 12 right by the fence line,” said incoming Liberty County Sheriff Dusty Arnold, who takes office Tuesday. “We’re very confident that three miles up from the crash site scene these individuals were picked up on SR 12, almost near the prison road.”
“There’s no reason to be alarmed,” Arnold said, adding that it is believed the two men are from Quincy. He said FHP will be assisting the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office in getting the men identified and warrants will be issued.
Peterson said the vehicle was recently purchased and is registered to a woman in Quincy.
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