Calumet Officer Recovers From Pursuit Crash

A Calumet police officer is recovering after a crash that ended a more than 60-mile police chase Monday night. The pursuit started in Guthrie when the suspect took off from a traffic stop and ended just west of El Reno. Major Jerry Goodwin, the assistant police chief in Calumet, said he was monitoring the activity on his radio and once he saw the suspect, he knew what he had to do.

“It's just instinctive, you're a protector, you protect the people,” Major Jerry Goodwin said.

Major Goodwin said his instinct kicked in Monday night. “Driving erratically,” he said of the pursuit he was monitoring. “Speeds quickly reached at one point, said over 120 miles per hour.”

Suspect Jimmie Don Dunham led multiple agencies on the high-speed pursuit down I-35 then out west on I-40, eventually into Canadian County. “It sounded like it had gotten pretty dangerous, Guthrie decided to back out, OHP decided to back out,” Goodwin recalls. “I happened to be up on the interstate watching it unfold coming towards me.”

That’s when he saw Canadian County deputies attempt tactical maneuvers. “He seemed to kind of know what he was doing,” Goodwin said of the suspect. “That's pretty scary when they know how to counteract and keep going, just shows their desperation.”

Goodwin said he could see Dunham’s determination to break free. “He was pushing the deputy out of the way with his car trying to get back onto the interstate and I knew it had to stop,” he said.

So, Goodwin made a quick decision. “At that point, I rammed him,” he said. “When I rammed him, it flipped his car, he was no longer going to go anywhere.”

Goodwin acted with no thought of his own safety, something nearly 38 years on the job taught him. “That was my only thought process at the time, stop it, save lives,” he said.

Looking back at the damage on his cruiser, the assistant police chief sits home recovering from a concussion. “I hurt,” he said. “My body hurts, some ringing in my ears.”

But he said he’s thankful it wasn’t worse. “Got a grandson on the way, so,” he said.

When Goodwin thinks back on that night, though, he says he’s at peace with his decision. “I'd do it again,” he said. “If he'd gotten back on that highway, I don't know what he'd done to somebody.”

Goodwin said he hopes to go back to work on Monday. Meanwhile, Dunham remains behind bars at the Canadian County Jail on complaints of eluding a police officer.

Related Article: Suspect Identified In Multi-Agency Chase That Injured Officer