ST. GEORGE – Footage from a dashcam video shows a Utah Highway Patrol trooper using a PIT maneuver to bring an end to a high-speed chase across three Southern Utah counties Thursday.
Around 4:30 p.m., a Beaver County Sheriff’s deputy stopped a black 2006 Subaru with Colorado plates for a traffic violation on southbound Interstate 15 around milepost 78, according to a news release from the UHP.
While pulled over, an adult male on the passenger side traded places with the Subaru’s driver and sped away, triggering a call out to other law enforcement via the dispatch center in Cedar City.
Responding UHP troopers set up spikes at miles 72 and 63 while a trooper looking for the fleeing Subaru located it southbound at 115 mph. At this point the trooper activated his vehicle’s lights and sirens and the chase ensued.
The Subaru’s right-side tires hit the spikes at Mile 72 and began to deflate. However, the chase continued through Iron County at speeds of 90-100 mph, and picked up some pursuing Iron County Sheriff’s deputies along the way.
The spikes at Mile 63 came up and the Subaru kept on while as the right-side tires lost their rubber.
Additional spiking attempts proved futile until the pursuit crossed into Washington County where spikes caught the remaining tires.
As the Subaru began to slow around Mile 19, a pursuing UHP trooper was able to perform a pursuit intervention technique, or PIT maneuver, that caused the fleeing vehicle to spin out and come to a stop on the side of the roadway.
The driver, 33-year-old Jerry L. White, told troopers he was trying to escape due to having warrants in Colorado.
There was also another adult in the Subaru along with three juveniles.
This report is based on statements from police 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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Twitter: @MoriKessler
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.
Appreciate UHP preventing this guy from entering the busy St. George corridor. This could have had a tragic outcome.
The way he came out of that car made it look like he may have to clean his shorts. Way to go troopers.
Good job, UHP!
Textbook Pit! Thanks for preventing a bad situation down the road.
Thankfully he was apprehend. Sadly, this vehicle was stolen and belongs to my sister. The driver fled with her car and now its in another states impound and is most likely never going to be returned to her. Her car was in a high speed chase and nobody notified her from the police department. She is a single mother and the cost of a new car has greatly impacted her finances. I hope he is sentenced to the maximum and isn’t allowed to do this to another innocent girl again. Not only did he take her car, he lied and took much more from her. Thank you for stopping this con artist before his reign of terror continued and other lives were hurt or lost because of his actions.