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Harman man arrested for allegedly fleeing from police

ELKINS — A Harman man was arrested Friday morning after allegedly fleeing from police in a vehicle that a female passenger jumped from while it was moving.

Dustin Lynn White, 19, was charged with fleeing with reckless indifference. He is currently in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $25,000 bond set by Randolph County Magistrate Ben Shepler.

According to the criminal complaint, prepared by Patrolman First Class D.T. Sayre of the Elkins Police Department, he noticed a red Mitsubishi traveling erratically on Harrison Avenue early Friday morning. Sayre turned around and followed the vehicle, and as it turned onto 11th Street and South Davis Avenue he saw “the two front passengers, male and female, appearing to be arguing back and forth and looking over their shoulders at me.”

Sayre then activated his lights and siren, but the Mitsubishi, driven by White, “took an immediate left turn onto 15th Street traveling at a high rate of speed,” the complaint states.

The Mitsubishi then turned onto South Henry Avenue and Whiteman Avenue, and the female passenger “jump(ed) from the moving vehicle and continues to roll onto the roadway towards the vehicle as it proceeded to flee,” according to the police report.

Senior Patrolman D.E. George joined in the pursuit in his vehicle, and the Mitsubishi “stopped as it saw George approaching and proceeded to back up, spinning the tires on the vehicle, towards my patrol vehicle, where it struck the push bumper of my patrol vehicle,” Sayre wrote.

Sayre then exited his vehicle and commanded White to stop, but his commands “were disregarded as the vehicle was attempting to remove itself from the front push bumper of my patrol vehicle,” according to the criminal complaint.

“As I am approaching the vehicle as it was attempting to flee, I extract the driver and place him onto the roadway, as George approached, restraining (White),” the complaint states.

The female passenger told officers she jumped from the moving vehicle “in an attempt to get away from White,” the police report states. Both the female passenger and the male passenger in the back seat of the Mitsubshi told police “they were in fear for their life and wanted out of the vehicle,” and both said they “pleaded with White to stop fleeing.”

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