A man police wanted to stop because of a complaint of him “shooting the finger” at someone Sunday night led officers on a high-speed chase on the west end of Orange. A 25-year-old man now faces a state jail felony of evading arrest instead of a misdemeanor.
West Orange Police Chief Jesse Romero said a patrol officer with his department took the complaint about the obscene gesture happening at the gas station in front of Walmart. A West Orange patrol officer saw the Ford Escape described by the person who complained. The SUV was on Camellia Street in the Roselawn subdivision.
The SUV sped away from the West Orange officer about 11:40 p.m. Orange Patrol Officer J.E. Roy reported he saw the SUV on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive traveling northbound and followed it. The SUV would not stop, he reported.
The chase went onto Strickland Drive and then onto 37th Street southbound. Officer Roy said the chase involved speeds more than 100 miles per hour and the Escape was running the stop signs on 37th Street.
The SUV was traveling too fast to make the turn from 37th Street onto Masonic Drive. Officer Roy said the brakes on the SUV locked and the vehicle slid from the roadway, through the ditch and onto the railroad tracks.
The man inside the SUV ran off into a wooded area, but police found him and arrested him. He was taken to the Baptist Hospital Emergency Room to be examined before being taken to the Orange County Jail.
Dustin Tyler Hasty of Jasper County faces a charge of evading arrest with a vehicle, a state jail felony. The lowest of the Texas felonies carries a punishment of six months to two years in a state jail and a $10,000 maximum fine. An obscene gesture is a Class C misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of a $500 fine.
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