HARRISON COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) — A South Mississippi woman caught in the middle of the high-speed pursuit of firearm suspects is now praising the officers who rushed to her aid.
On Wednesday, WLOX News interviewed her and met the Pass Christian police officer who brought the fleeing fugitives to a halt and credited dispatchers for making it happen.
Sheriff deputies and state troopers securing the U-Haul van that fled from Slidell, LA.(WLOX)
Before the pursuit ended around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Harrison County, Slidell Police Department responded to reports of gunfire behind the Aldi on Northshore Boulevard. According to officers, witnesses described a white U-Haul van fleeing the area immediately after shots rang out.
Slidell PD told WLOX News, one of its officers spotted the suspect vehicle on the interstate and attempted to pull it over. That’s when the pursuit began.
Around the same time Tuesday afternoon, June Gautier left her Long Beach home to pick up lunch for her husband.
June Gautier walking to her car parked outside her Long Beach home.(WLOX)
The first restaurant she stopped at was closed, so she detoured to a different spot. She was driving south on Menge Avenue when her eyes drifted to her rearview mirror.
“I noticed there was a van coming really fast,” she recalled, but said she didn’t think it was anything other than a speeding vehicle.
June Gautier looking in her rear-view mirror.(WLOX)
Pass Christian Police Department’s Capt. Ryan Henry was in the area when he heard dispatch advise that a fleeing vehicle from Louisiana was now southbound on Menge Avenue and headed his way.
When the U-Haul van passed June Gautier on the single-lane roadway, she felt her sedan shake hard.
“It kinda knocked my wheel off the pavement and I said, they hit me!” Gautier said.
A metal pipe had hit Gautier’s tire and punctured the wall, leaving a hole in the rubber. Then she watched a fleet of law enforcement vehicles fly past her in pursuit of the U-Haul van.
Hole punched in June Gautier’s tire during pursuit of the U-Haul van.(WLOX)
Captain Ryan Henry deploying a spike strip outside the Pass Christian Police Department.(WLOX)
Further down the road, Capt. Henry stood ready with a spike strip in his hands.
“A white Ford Transit van came speeding down Menge Avenue and I knew that was our suspect vehicle,” Henry said. “As I saw it coming, I deployed [the strip] in the roadway.”
Henry has been a law enforcement officer for seven years, but he had never deployed spike strips outside of training. It didn’t matter, though, because the officer bulls-eyed the moving target, shredding the fleeing van’s tires.
It was an adrenaline-inducing moment, Henry said.
“The vehicle is traveling very fast, it’s close to you, there are patrolmen trying to catch up to it,” Henry said. “It can be [a lot of pressure].”
The one-in-a-million shot would not have happened without the dispatchers, he added.
“Communication is key. The dispatchers did a terrific job in letting us know when the vehicle was coming, which allowed me to be in the right place at the right time,” Henry said.
Captain Ryan Henry during the interview with Noah Noble.(WLOX)
The two occupants of the U-Haul van fled, but didn’t make it far: Cheyenne Kirkpatrick and Seth Johnson were arrested and charged with felony fleeing.
While sheriff’s deputies and state troopers secured the scene, Pass Christian police officers checked on June Gautier and her damaged sedan.
“[The officers] put my spare tire on, they fixed everything that needed to be fixed,” she said. “They were so nice. I was so impressed by them. They were so kind and professional.”
Kirkpatrick was also charged with obstruction of justice charge, and Johnson was charged with discharging a firearm.
Cheyenne Kirkpatrick and Seth Johnson.(WLOX)
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