St. Robert officers expect a few police chases per year when motorists refuse to stop for police. But according to Lt. Jayme Gettys, the department has never before had anything like Thursday morning’s hundred-mile chase at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 mph that ended up in St. Louis County.
“This has definitely got to be the longest chase ever initiated in St. Robert,” Gettys said. “We may have two or three pursuits a year and sometimes more, but you’re talking about a mile or two miles at the most; nothing of this magnitude, by no means.”
Thursday morning was an ordinary day for Officer Derin Richardson when he noticed a Chevrolet Cavalier with two occupants, a man and a woman, that changed lanes on Interstate 44 about 10:34 a.m. without signaling near eastbound mile marker 159 and then ran off the roadway briefly. The Cavalier got off at Exit 161, turned onto Highway Z, and stopped in the parking lot of the Cenex gas station.
Richardson got out of his patrol car and began to walk toward Cavalier. Rather than providing his license and registration, the driver, later identified as Anthony Cesar Hervas, 20, of Chicago, gunned the car’s accelerator and fled.
“The other driver basically spun his tires and did a donut to get out of the parking lot and burned the tires,” Gettys said. “When he got back on I-44, (Richardson) clocked him at speeds in excess of 100 mph.”
That’s not easy for a police sport utility vehicle that’s designed to carry a police dog. The standard-issue Crown Victoria police interceptor models are designed for speed and power, and Richardson called for backup. That didn’t happen until the fleeing Cavalier had reached mile marker 169, the Highway J junction near the Phelps-Pulaski county line, when a state trooper was able to join the chase and take over the primary pursuit role.
More agencies joined in as the chase continued through Phelps County and into Crawford and Franklin Counties, including Phelps County deputies, Rolla police, Bourbon city police and Franklin County deputies.
St. Robert police have ordered stop sticks for their patrol cars, but Gettys said his department’s officers haven’t yet gone through training to use them and they can’t be used until that training takes place. Multiple efforts were made to use stop sticks to puncture Hervas’ tires but all failed until his Cavalier got several hundred yards across the Franklin County line into St. Louis County.
Gettys said Hervas was able to avoid the stop sticks or the officers trying to use them had to back off because of safety conditions involving other traffic. Even after all four tires were punctured, Hervas continued driving about 40 mph down the interstate and had to be stopped by having his car blocked in by other patrol vehicles.
There’s no way to train officers with pursuits at those speeds, Gettys said, and he commended Richardson for his skill in chasing a driver who was far exceeding the speeds for which the roads were designed. Richardson’s vehicle wasn’t damaged during the chase, but a Phelps County deputy’s car and a Bourbon police car were both damaged, along with a civilian car and a civilian truck that were forced off the road by the chase.
“Any pursuit, whether it is 100 miles at 100 mph or three blocks at 45 mph, is dangerous because it can be so unpredictable,” Gettys said. “Officer Richardson did everything that I would want an officer to do on a pursuit of this magnitude.”
Richardson, a seven-year veteran in law enforcement, said much of the pursuit happened so quickly that he had to react based on his experience.
“As police officers, we are supposed to respond rationally,” Richardson said. “I really didn’t have any emotions, I just followed procedures.”
While it’s no more possible to have officers train with 100 mph chases than it is to have officers experience bullets being shot past their heads, Gettys said the hundreds of hours per week spent by officers behind the wheel gives them an intensive familiarity with their vehicle and how it handles, and that can be crucial in a pursuit.
“Just driving on a daily basis, their accustomed to driving,” Gettys said. “We’re officers but we’re also human beings so we’re always going to get excited, but our training prepares us for that.”