Suspect's desperate flight winds up under a minivan
A stolen car rams a couple's car. The suspect runs, an officer right behind him. The chase ends after a woman is terrified to see black sneakers under her van.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
Published September 1, 2004
ZEPHYRHILLS - Coming around a corner on Eiland Boulevard following a stolen car, Zephyrhills police Capt. David Shears didn't like what he saw.
"All I could see was dust and dirt," Shears said.
Seconds earlier, the stolen car had rammed the car of a couple on their way to the library. The couple's car flipped on its side, kicking up the dust and dirt. They were trapped inside.
On the other side of the road, Shears saw the stolen car tilted over on two wheels in the ditch. The car slammed back down, and a man bolted from it, running toward the Silver Oaks community.
Shears ran after him.
In the overturned car, Jim and Betty Satterfield were shaken, but not injured seriously - amazing, considering their car was rammed in the side and flipped over.
After they were pulled out, Jim Satterfield ignored the scrape on his arm and the trickle of blood on his leg and worked to retrieve his books and golf clubs from the car.
Meanwhile, a foot chase was winding through Silver Oaks.
Shears, 42, vaulted over fences and bushes and raced through neat suburban streets chasing the younger man. He continued to call for help, letting colleagues know exactly where he was, and where the fleeing man was.
The chase took him to Cullens Trail.
Shears saw a woman outside and asked if she had seen a man running by. She said no.
Shears noticed her open garage and asked if it had been open for a while. That's when the woman peeked in her garage. Under her minivan were a pair of black sneakers.
Silently and in a near panic, the woman waved Shears over, pointing under the van.
The woman went in her house and locked her doors.
Shears, his weapon drawn, called for help and waited for a backup car. He then shouted into the garage, telling the man to come out with his hands up.
Charles Nathan Jines, 29, of Stuart reluctantly stepped out of the garage. Shears, his chest heaving from exhaustion and adrenaline, told him off on the spot.
"He was saying he didn't mean to hurt anybody," Shears said. "I told him he could have really hurt some people." Shears still didn't know what happened to the couple in the overturned car.
Jines, who grew up in Tampa and has a record of burglary convictions in Hillsborough County, told Zephyrhills police he came to Zephyrhills to visit his girlfriend.
Police records indicate he was driving a 1994 Buick Century stolen Monday evening in Zephyrhills. He was charged with grand theft of an automobile, burglary of a residence, fleeing and attempting to elude law enforcement, and leaving the scene of an accident with injuries.
Jines faced additional charges from other recent incidents. But those charges had not formally been filed late Tuesday when Jines was being checked into the county jail in Land O'Lakes.
The incident began just before 10 a.m. when Shears noticed the stolen car on U.S. 301. It ended about 10:12 with Jines' arrest.
"Once we caught the guy, I was still worried about the car that flipped over," Shears said.
By the time he got back to Eiland Boulevard, the Satterfields had been pulled out of their car. Zephyrhills firefighters John Falls, Coy Barton and Capt. Jim Kuhn, cut out the front window to release Jim Satterfield, 77. Betty Satterfield, 71, was helped out the back window, which had already shattered.
Later, as she thanked the firefighters, Betty Satterfield tried to figure out what happened. She felt soreness where her seat belt caught her. She never saw the stolen car racing in the wrong lane straight at her and her husband. She didn't see her husband's sudden turn to the right to avoid a head-on collision.
"I didn't see a thing," she said. "I don't know how many times the car flipped over. But it sounds like my husband turned just in time or I wouldn't be standing here talking about it."
