CEDAR CITY – In two separate yet simultaneous incidents Friday night, a California man was arrested after leading police on a short chase on Interstate 15 while officers in the city assisted county deputies with a domestic fight, calling in SWAT for assistance.
The Iron County Sheriff’s Office arrested Abdul Wadud Jabal for failure to stop on command, a third-degree felony, following a short chase on Interstate 15 that ended with a PIT maneuver, Sheriff Mark Gower said.
The PIT maneuver, shortened for precision immobilization technique, is a pursuit tactic law enforcement officers use to force a fleeing car to turn sideways and stop.
Iron County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Fox had been conducting a routine traffic stop at milepost 62 at 9:49 p.m. when Jabal drove by and almost hit him, according to Iron County Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Raddatz.
Fox then began following Jabal and reportedly saw him almost rear-end another vehicle traveling in front of him. At that point, the deputy tried to pull him over but Jabal refused to stop.
“The deputy had his lights on, his sirens and he even shown his flashlight inside the suspect’s vehicle trying to get him to pull over, but he wouldn’t,” Raddatz said.
Fox and Jabal were traveling about 50 mph as weather conditions prevented the suspect from going any faster.
“It was snowing and there was snow on the freeway so 50 miles per hour was a high-speed chase in those conditions,” Raddatz said.
After employing the PIT maneuver at around milepost 67, Fox conducted a felony stop with his gun drawn on the 41-year-old suspect. Jabal was then taken into custody without further incident.
Jabal was booked into the Iron County Correctional Facility on both the felony and a Class B misdemeanor for possession of marijuana.
SWAT called in domestic incident
Meanwhile, just 10 minutes after the first call was dispatched, Cedar City Police responded at around 10 p.m. to a call on a report of a domestic fight near Westview Drive located in the county jurisdiction.
The call was in the Iron County area but the deputies on patrol were still dealing with the freeway incident, Gower said, adding that the deputies joined CCPD just a short time later.
The call to dispatch came from a neighbor of Jared Giles Sherwood who said Sherwood asked them to call 911 after allegedly breaking the victim’s arm.
“It was kinda weird because he didn’t call from his phone but told the neighbors to call and then left and went back to his house,” Raddatz said.
Due to the man’s alleged history with police, the city police paged the Iron County SWAT team for standby.
Officers were also concerned about making direct contact with the suspect and decided instead to call Sherwood via his cell phone.
“It was a high risk situation because we knew that there were firearms in the home so that’s why the officers called SWAT,” Raddatz said. “We weren’t comfortable making direct contact so we decided to call him on his cell phone. That way we could assess the situation and ensure there were no weapons. We felt that was the safest way to handle things.”
Sherwood surrendered to police without incident following the phone call. He was booked into the Iron County Correctional Facility for domestic violence aggravated assault with intent to do serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony, and intoxication, a Class C misdemeanor.
Gold Cross Ambulance transported the victim to Cedar City Hospital with serious injuries. She was released early Saturday morning but will need surgery and further medical care, Raddatz said.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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Once again the professionalism of local law enforcement is present in two occasions resulting in arrests and the public is safe from harm and I would like to thank all those involved in making this is possible.