A 33-year-old man from Chesapeake, Ohio, was arrested in Copley Township on Tuesday morning, Oct. 27, after leading police on a pursuit in a car reported stolen out of Stark County, crashing on Hametown Road and running into a nearby field, according to Copley police in a report carried by the Akron Beacon Journal.
The encounter began around 5:40 a.m. Tuesday, when a Copley patrol officer saw a car failing to maintain its lane on South Cleveland-Massillon Road near Copley Road, the Beacon Journal reported from the police account. The officer followed the car and learned it was listed as stolen out of Stark County.
When the officer tried to stop the car with overhead lights, police deployed StarChase, a GPS tracking technology designed to let officers follow a fleeing vehicle without a prolonged high-speed chase, according to the police account reported by the Beacon Journal. The deployment was successful, and the officer turned the overhead lights off.
The driver later crashed on Hametown Road near Hemphill Road, got out of the car and fled on foot, police told the Beacon Journal. Officers searched the area and found the man hiding in a field nearby, where he was taken into custody.
The man was evaluated by the Copley Fire Department after the arrest, according to the police account. Copley is a Summit County township west of Akron, and South Cleveland-Massillon Road is one of its main north-south routes for morning commuters.
Police charged the man with receiving stolen property, the Beacon Journal reported. The department also said he is currently on parole for illegal conveyance to a detention facility, an earlier offense involving bringing prohibited items into a jail or similar facility.
The case now moves through the Summit County court system, where the receiving stolen property charge will be heard and prosecutors will decide whether any additional charges follow from the pursuit and crash. Police have not reported any injuries in the incident.
Under Ohio law, receiving stolen property involving a motor vehicle is a fourth-degree felony, a charge that reflects the car itself rather than the pursuit. Whether the man faces additional counts tied to fleeing will be up to prosecutors reviewing the officers’ reports from Tuesday morning.
Photo: Raymond Wambsgans, CC BY-SA 2.0