High speed, low speed, circuitous chase ends with arrest
Last Thursday at lunchtime a man from Florida stole a Nissan Rogue in Berryville.
The driver shot off to the west, toward Eureka Springs, and turned right on Passion Play Rd. Officer Mark Ashby heard dispatch, and positioned himself at Magnetic and North Main, where the car would have to turn left into town or right toward the train station and Missouri.
Assistant Police Chief Brian Jones advised he was on Magnetic and behind the stolen vehicle, which had passed a car stopped at the sign on Magnetic, turned right and accelerated to high speed. According to the police report, Jones and Ashby turned on their emergency lights in pursuit. Jones’s car was unmarked, so Ashby took the lead.
The Nissan turned up Hillside, then took an immediate right onto Grand Ave, putting it in Dairy Hollow going toward Clear Spring School, where Officer Francisco Pedraza had deployed spike strips. The Nissan driver drove off the road and behind a row of mailboxes avoiding the strips, and went up the hill to Pivot Rock Rd. At the end of that road, he turned right onto US 62 and started passing cars on the curvy, two-lane federal highway going toward Lake Leatherwood.
Once he got there, he turned around in the gravel drive by the ballfields and headed back to Eureka Springs. Pedraza prepared to deploy spike strips at the Thorncrown Chapel driveway, but the Nissan driver abruptly pointed his car at Pedraza, then got back on the highway after barely missing the patrol unit. He passed cars on double yellows until he got to the intersection of Kingshighway and W. Van Buren, by Thurman and Flanagin Law Firm.
The Nissan driver slowed, then put the pedal to the metal, sped by the Independent office, and headed to Hwy. 23 South, County Road 305, again driving slowly but using both lanes.
When the Nissan was blocked at a 23 South driveway, the driver drove through a ditch and headed to town, again, and got on 62 again headed East until he got to NAPA Auto Parts, where he was blocked by officers. He tried to get away by driving over rocks, but hit Jones’s cop car and came to a stop.
Ashby drew his pistol and ordered the driver out of the vehicle, but first the driver put the car in reverse and hesitated. Then he got out with his hands up and laid on the ground, as directed. Ashby used a body camera throughout the chase.
The man was identified as Paul MichaelValdivieso, 32, of Florida. He said he was trying to escape from a gang. He was transported to Carroll County Detention Center in Berryville.
The 73 year-old woman whose car was stolen got it back.