High-speed pursuit through Springfield ends in arrest of fugitive:
Deputies from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Apprehension Unit attempted to arrest a wanted fugitive with multiple felony warrants in the north Springfield area. When deputies approached the home where the suspect was located, the fugitive Johnnie Coffer, and another man left the residence in a white Chevy Silverado. Investigators say the fugitive drove to the area of Interstate-44 and West Bypass where he abruptly stopped the vehicle, assaulted the driver, and forced him out of the vehicle before fleeing in the victim’s stolen truck. Deputies initiated a traffic stop on the driver but he kept going.
Due to the nature of the charges, (robbery, assault, and multiple felony warrants) the pursuit continued through north Springfield and eventually went into the south Springfield area. During the pursuit, investigators say the fugitive repeatedly called 911 threatening to assault other drivers by crashing into their vehicles as well as threatening “suicide by cop.” The vehicle pursuit ended in the area of Grant Avenue and Dale Street after a trained deputy performed a low-speed TVI (Tactical Vehicle Intervention) maneuver. Investigators say Coffer’s truck collided with one uninvolved motorist at this point causing no injuries and then he intentionally rammed a deputy sheriff’s patrol vehicle head-on, causing no serious injury to the deputy.
After I picked up the youngest from school yesterday, we stopped by the bank on Battlefield. We heard sirens on Battlefield as we conducted our transaction, and as we headed east on Battlefield, 13 police cars from both Springfield and Greene County were headed in the other direction. I speculated that something was happening at the police station a mile down the road, but nah.
An interesting bit about it, though–we looked on the local media stations about what was going on during the course of the evening, but we didn’t find anything. It reached the local television station’s Web site this morning when the news organization printed law enforcement’s statement. And the live shot in the article linked above was from later that evening, a standup outside the police station on Battlefield. C’mon, guys, don’t any of you have a police scanner and someone to jump on big events like that? Nah, the two twenty-four-year-olds are already knocking off by 4:30, and if it ain’t on Twitter, it ain’t happening.
