091214 I45 WRONG WAY DRIVER

Just after 10 p.m. Friday night Shenandoah Police Sergeant Gary Sharpen was on patrol in the neighborhoods of this Montgomery County Community. It was then he heard radio traffic of a vehicle traveling at approximately 100 miles per hour driving southbound in the northbound lanes of Interstate 45 north of Conroe.

Conroe Police units had reports of the vehicle southbound near FM 830 and found the PT Cruiser in the southbound shoulder of the northbound lanes near North Loop 336. As they approached the vehicle he fled southbound. With lights going Conroe shadowed the vehicle southbound.

Knowing the driver could potentially make it to Shenandoah, Sharpen rushed to Interstate 45 and entered the freeway. The area he entered was in a construction area with no shoulders and concrete walls on both sides of the freeway. Behind him was not just normal Friday night traffic but hundreds of cars entering the freeway from a football game that had just ended.

Sharpen, using his vehicle began to slowly weave across the lanes of the freeway in an effort to stop the flow of traffic. Most vehicles slowed but others did try to go around which was an extra effort to stop them also.

Listening to the radio traffic he was informed the PT Cruiser was only a short distance ahead and still traveling at 100 miles per hour.It was then Sharpen saw the lights, “I angled my vehicle to a position where he would strike the right front, putting as much mass as possible between us, I then tightened my seatbelt and braced for impact,” Sharpen said. That impact never came. The vehicle locked his brakes stopping within ten feet of a collision and made a u-turn.

Sharpen, the only unit there began a pursuit. As they passed the northbound entrance ramp of SH 242 the driver of the PT Cruiser crossed three lanes as if to attempt to strike a vehicle entering the freeway. As they approached the FM 1488 exit, the vehicle exited, and traveling at almost 100 miles per hour continued on the feeder through intersections for the next 4 miles.

When they approached South Loop 336 in Conroe the driver turned westbound going under Interstate 45 and into the parking lot of a Shell gas station. He passed at least two people in the parking lot pumping gas then wrapped through the Incredible Pizza parking lot and past the entrance doors of the Waffle House. As he left that parking lot a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputy tried to stop the vehicle but the driver went around him and into the Kroger gas station parking lot.

The driver then exited the parking lot and entered the westbound lanes of South Loop 336 traveling eastbound. Crossing over he entered the eastbound lanes and crossed under the freeway. It was there he was met by a DPS Trooper, seeing the troopers weapon draw, the driver stopped his vehicle and exited. He was immediately taken down and placed in custody.

As a Trooper began to search the vehicle he found two unrestrained children ages 18-months and 4-years in the back seat.