MAN ARRESTED AFTER FLEEING, RAMMING INVESTIGATOR

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

A Pine Bluff man who rammed his car into a car driven by an investigator from the Tri-County Drug Task Force on Thursday afternoon will have to post a $50,000 bond to be released from the county detention center while prosecutors consider felony charges against him.

At a court hearing Friday, Circuit Judge Rob Wyatt Jr. set the bond for Jeremiah Robinson, 19, after ruling prosecutors had probable cause to charge Robinson with felony fleeing.

Reading from an affidavit from Sgt. Yohance Brunson, Deputy Prosecutor Cymber Gieringer said Brunson was traveling north on Cherry Street at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday when he saw a car driven by Robinson that had a severely cracked windshield. When Brunson attempted to stop the car, the vehicle accelerated.

Gieringer said Brunson called in the pursuit and chased the car which ran several stop signs in the central part of Pine Bluff before turning east on 13th Avenue and slowing down.

“Sgt. Brunson reported the driver of the car put it in reverse and backed up, hitting the police vehicle before spinning around, and the driver, later identified as Robinson, exited the vehicle and took off running,” Gieringer said.

She said Brunson chased Robinson to 1221 Laurel St. when he was arrested and put him into a marked police unit that had responded to the pursuit. Brunson walked back to Robinson’s car where he found a package wrapped in brown paper and sealed with brown tape on the floorboard of the vehicle.

“It was packaged like a brick and contained a green leafy substance that appeared to be marijuana,” Gieringer quoted the affidavit as saying, explaining that the substance weighed 1.6 pounds, but did not field test positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

“If it wasn’t marijuana, what was it?” Wyatt asked Gieringer, who said the substance was sent to the State Crime Laboratory at Little Rock for analysis.

Gieringer said Brunson had arrested Robinson, who was listed on the county’s Most Wanted felons list in July after chasing him across a field July 24, then using a Tazer when Robinson refused to submit to arrest.

Robinson was being sought on warrants charging him with kidnapping, rape and aggravated assault, with a $25,000 bond, and Gieringer said he is scheduled for plea and arraignment on those charges later this month.