A man has been charged with several counts of grand larceny auto and assault on a police officer after leading police on a chase across Jones and Forrest counties through Hattiesburg and Petal.
Forrest County Sheriff Charlie Sims said 30-year-old Jared Slade was involved in an automobile accident with a woman Wednesday evening on JC Bryant Road near Pep's Point water park. After the wreck, both individuals got out of their respective vehicles, at which point the man got agitated during a verbal interaction and stole the woman's car.
"He goes down a couple of roads in this car, hits another vehicle, leaves the scene of that," Sims said. "Our deputies see him and a chase begins."
Officers chased Slade through the Eatonville community before losing him on Monroe Road. While on that road, however, Slade saw a woman on the side of the road getting her mail, pulled into that driveway and stole her car.
"He goes through her yard trying to turn around and get back to the road, and he hits a wet spot and gets stuck in her yard," Sims said. "He jumps back out of the car and back into the car that he originally stole.
"He comes tearing out of there, another deputy sees him, and the chase starts again. He goes back up (Interstate) 59, makes a U-turn in the median, gets in the northbound lane of 59, gets back on Monroe Road and drives back to Evelyn Gandy Parkway through downtown Petal."
Slade then wrecked the vehicle near the Family Y on Hillcrest Loop in Petal, where he was taken into custody. He was booked into the Forrest County Correctional Facility and charged with two counts of grand larceny auto and three counts of assault on a police officer for attempting to ram their patrol cars during the chase.
"He'll probably be charged with some type of possession of a controlled substance; we did find some needles on him, and he was obviously high as a kite when we finally got him," Sims said.
The Jones County Sheriff's Office and the Petal Police Department assisted with the incident.
