Okmulgee County Chase Ends In Crash With Suspect, Sheriff

A high-speed chase in Okmulgee County ended with three people behind bars Wednesday.

The sheriff's office said it asked the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for help, but it’s what the suspect did that ended the chase.

There’s damage to a fence along Highway 75 where the crash ended; it happened after the sheriff’s office said the suspect’s pickup and the sheriff’s truck collided and slid off the road.

4/12/2017 Related Story: High-Speed Okmulgee Chase Ends With Wreck

The landowner is now left cleaning up the mess after the Okmulgee County Sheriff's Office said 19-year-old driver Levi Womack led deputies on a dangerous chase Wednesday with two juvenile passengers in a stolen pickup.

Investigator Smokey Patchin said, "I mean these guys were driving at times over 120, swerving at vehicles - they swerved at the sheriff, they swerved at me. They were very reckless."

The chase started just outside Okmulgee and went onto Highway 75 where the driver was on the wrong side of the road at one point.

Patchin said deputies asked OHP to help them by doing a tactical vehicle intervention.

"When you rub vehicles together at high speeds - we're not trained to do that," Patchin said.

He said no troopers were close enough to help, but actions by the suspect ended the chase.

"They landed on their brakes and when they did he hit them with his truck at about 95 miles per hour, so it was pretty interesting," Patchin said.

He said the two trucks became intertwined - with Sheriff Eddy Rice's truck bumper locked into the suspect's bumper, and at the speed they were driving, Patchin said the sheriff had no choice but to crash into the stolen pickup.

"Sheriff was driving a big truck. Takes a lot to make those stop when you get them going fast," he said.

The investigator estimates about $15,000 worth of damage to Sheriff Rice's truck.

The sheriff's office said the stolen truck was totaled, but deputies returned several items inside it to the owner.

They took the driver and two juveniles into custody.