A man allegedly broke out of the sheriff’s office after being arrested for leading a deputy on a vehicle chase several days earlier.
Derrick R. Shahan, 26, of Morgantown, is charged with two counts of fleeing in a vehicle with reckless indifference and escape from custody by the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Office.
About 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 21, a deputy spotted a Toyota Avalon that was involved in a vehicle chase with a different deputy several days earlier on Pineview Drive, according to a criminal complaint.
The deputy attempted to stop the vehicle but the driver ignored the lights and sirens and accelerated away at a “high rate of speed,” the complaint said. The vehicle reached up to 80 mph on West Run Road, swerved into the opposite lane and nearly struck another vehicle.
The complaint said chase ended when the vehicle lost the deputy by going past a vehicle stopped at a red light, continued up Stewartstown Road and disappeared into the “S turns at WVU farms.”
On Wednesday morning, Shahan was arrested on a warrant and admitted to being the driver in that chase, the complaint said. He knew details of the chase that weren’t released and told a deputy where he went to hide.
While being processed by transport officers at the sheriff’s office on Walnut Street on Wednesday morning, Shahan ran out of the room and broke through the doors to the Sally Port in the holding area, according to the complaint.
He then ran across University Avenue, through a parking lot and onto the Westover Bridge, the complaint said. He was chased by deputies who caught him on the Westover side of the bridge, the complaint said.
Sheriff Perry Palmer said the door was broke but it was working again by Wednesday afternoon.Shahan is being held in North Central Regional Jail in lieu of $250,000 bond.
