Police chase ends with two-vehicle wreck; suspect captured
Published 2:34 pm Thursday, August 9, 2018
By Mary Meaux and Ken Stickney
A high-speed police chase through the heart of Port Arthur on Thursday afternoon ended when the driver of a stolen van was in collision with a second vehicle.
At least eight first-responder vehicles gathered at Florida and Thomas around 2 p.m. with the suspect, an unidentified male, seated in the back of a Port Arthur police cruiser. Witnesses described him as a teenager.
Acadian emergency medical personnel wheeled a lone woman from a vehicle toward their ambulance. She was identified by onlookers to the collision as the driver of a blue GMC sport utility vehicle that had heavy damage to its passenger side. The airbag apparently deployed and she appeared to be alert on a stretcher.
Annette Lennette, who lives at Stonegate, said she was there when a lone male jumped into a van that she said was delivering Meals on Wheels food when the suspected vehicle thief sped off. She said she followed the van after the van’s rightful owner said it had been stolen and shouted, “Stop him. He stole the van.”
Lennette said she tried to keep up with the driver; she said he passed “through every red light” from Turtle Creek to Highway 69. That included Turtle Creek Drive, Ninth Avenue, Jimmy Johnson Boulevard and onto Memorial Drive, where at least four police vehicles gave chase. She said the suspect driver was driving at speeds greater than 80 mph when she gave up her pursuit.
That chased ended in a thickly settled residential area under the shade of numerous trees, with neighbors gathering around the crash site.
