San Andreas, CA — A high-speed vehicle chase between Calaveras and Stockton wound up with one man behind bars on a $1.5 million bond.
Calaveras Sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Greg Stark says last night shortly after 8 o’clock, dispatch received a report and description of a suspicious vehicle near the Dollar General Store in Valley Springs. According to the caller, four individuals associated with it were looking into other vehicles and appeared to be casing the store for about an hour.
Stark recounts that the closest unit, staffed with a corporal and a new deputy in week-four of the field-training program, responded, heading east on Highway 26, and saw the suspect vehicle, occupied with a driver and three passengers, pass them traveling westbound. As the deputies turned to intercept the suspect car, a Lexis, they observed it passing vehicles while traveling over double lines.
As the deputies caught up to the sedan and attempted an enforcement stop, the suspect failed to yield and accelerated to a high rate of speed in an attempt to escape. The California Highway Patrol and San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office were alerted and asked to assist in the pursuit. As the deputies pursued the vehicle they noted the license plate did not match as it was registered to an Isuzu SUV.
According to Stark, CHP officers took over the pursuit on Jack Tone Road near Copperopolis Road in San Joaquin County near Stockton, pursuing the Lexis until it crashed at Waterloo Road and North Filbert Street in Stockton. There, CHP and San Joaquin deputies were able to take all four persons into custody.
During the investigation, they determined the vehicle was stolen from an area outside Calaveras County. According to the occupants, they asked to be let out of the vehicle during the pursuit but the driver, 18-year-old Kevin Anthony Perry of Oakland, refused to stop.
Perry was taken into custody, charged with felony evading, vehicle theft, larceny, three counts of kidnapping, and a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest along with an outstanding felony warrant out of San Francisco County for robbery. He was booked into the San Joaquin County Jail.
Stark notes the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office thanks the allied agencies for their assistance in this investigation along with the alert citizens who notified dispatch of their observations, adding, “It is an excellent example of the community and law enforcement working in partnership to prevent crime.”