BREAKING: OWNER GETS STOLEN JEEP BACK AFTER WILD PURSUIT By Michael Zogg Triplicate staff writer While sleeping on the first floor of her house, Brookings resident Jennifer Harrah heard her jeep being started up and driven away sometime between 6:16 and 6:50 a.m. on Monday morning. Still half-asleep, however, Harrah didn’t quite register what she was hearing. “I didn’t think anything of it,” Harrah told the Triplicate. “At about 6:50 a.m. I got my daughter up for school. When I came back downstairs I looked out my back window and my jeep was gone.” Harrah said a neighbor walked past her house and noticed the jeep was still there at 6:16 a.m. on Monday, meaning the jeep must have been stolen sometime in the next 35 minutes. Harrah reported the jeep as stolen to the Brookings Police Department and posted her phone number on Facebook along with the police department’s number, asking for anyone with any information to call. Harrah said she received multiple calls, all from complete strangers. On Monday Harrah was told the jeep was spotted in Crescent City on Washington Avenue near Walmart. Harrah said she drove around the area for a while on Monday but didn’t have any luck locating the vehicle. When Tuesday morning rolled around and she got her daughter off to school, she was still restless. “I couldn’t get back to sleep because I kept thinking about my jeep,” Harrah said. With sleep out of the question, Harrah had her friend Aleasha Garton come and pick her up. Harrah got a tip that her jeep was seen in Smith River near the casino, so Harrah and Garton crossed the border into California to investigate. Harrah said they drove down to Smith River, and as they were driving past Smith River Elementary School at about 8:05 a.m. they finally saw what they were looking for. The jeep was now black instead of royal blue but Harrah immediately recognized it thanks to the stinger bumper on the front and the dents on the driver’s side of the vehicle. Harrah and Garton turned around and began following her vehicle as Harrah called the California Highway Patrol to report what was going on to law enforcement. Harrah and Garton followed the jeep down Sarina Road and across U.S. Highway 101 onto Ocean View Drive. It was about then, Harrah believes, that the driver of the jeep began to suspect that he was being followed. “There were a couple times that he stuck his arm out the window and tried to wave us by to pass him,” Harrah said. “After that he knew we were following him. He was swerving all over the road and flipping us off.” Harrah’s jeep crossed Highway 101 again at the end of Ocean View, where the driver tried to lose Harrah and Garton. He returned to Ocean View and eventually turned onto Highway 101 and took that to Rowdy Creek Road. “Honestly, when we were following him, it felt sort of like ‘Need for Speed Hot Pursuit,’” Harrah said, referencing a video game. “It was so intense it was unreal.” With Harrah and Garton still in hot pursuit, the driver appeared increasingly desperate to get away. “He was stopping in the middle of the road and spinning the tires to kick rocks at the car. He was swerving back and fourth. He even stopped completely once and threw it into reverse on a really twisty road with a cliff on the driver’s side, and he tried to ram us,” Harrah said. “We had to throw it into reverse to avoid him.” After that, roughly 10 miles down Rowdy Creek Road, Harrah estimated, she called off the chase. Harrah, who had been cut off from police when her cell phone lost signal coverage on Rowdy Creek, returned to Highway 101 to call police again, but Highway Patrol had already located the vehicle, about one mile farther down the road from where Harrah and Garton turned around. California Highway Patrol Officer Rick Borges recovered the vehicle, which had been driven off the road into a small clearing and had apparently ran out of gas. The subject apparently fled the scene on foot, Borges said. By about 10:30 a.m. Harrah was back possession of her jeep. “I’m just glad that I got my jeep back,” she said. Harrah reported that she believes she recognized the male driver of the jeep. California Highway Patrol declined to release the name of the suspect due to the on-going nature of the investigation. “She gave us a name. We will have her pick a photo out of a lineup to see if she can recognize him, and we are also searching the vehicle for fingerprints,” Borges said.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:47:54 +0000
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