Man gets away from officers twice after chase, later flees to Mexico

By Gentry Braswell
Herald/Review

Published on Wednesday, September 05, 2007
SIERRA VISTA — A man escaped from Arizona Department of Public Safety custody Tuesday and fled across the border after a morning car chase and crash on Highway 92.

DPS officers were involved in a vehicle chase northbound when the pursuit was called off because of speed as it approached the greater Sierra Vista area, said Sierra Vista DPS spokeswoman Joy Craig.


Just after the chase was called off at about 9 a.m., the driver of the fleeing vehicle crashed into the rear of another vehicle near the intersection of Highway 92 and Hereford Road. Incidentally, a Cochise County Sheriff’s Office cruiser caught that crash on tape and started chasing the runaway vehicle, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Carol Capas said.

That chase, involving Capt. Mark Dannels, went from vehicle pursuit to a foot pursuit until such time the fleeing man and Dannels struggled on the ground, Capas said.

Dannels held the man at gunpoint and called over emergency frequencies for assistance from deputies and DPS, but the man ran off and jumped a residential fence, in spite of the detaining officer’s posture, Capas said.

Capas said there were apparently other people in the vehicle with the fleeing driver, but U.S. Border Patrol was not immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon regarding the incident.

A Border Patrol helicopter helped DPS personnel search the area for the man, and he was spotted hiding in tall grass about 10 a.m.

He was taken to the Naco Port of Entry for his fingerprints, photo and other identifiers to be compared with the law enforcement criminal database at the station early Tuesday afternoon, but after arriving at the point of entry, the man struck a DPS officer and ran across the border, Craig said.

REPORTER Gentry Braswell can be reached at 515-4680 or by e-mail at gentry.braswell@svherald.com.

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