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Fender bender leads to jail

Ohio man dings police chief's truck, flees

August 20, 2009|By Fred Petke

An armed, convicted Ohio felon might have gotten away after backing into Winchester Police Chief Kevin Palmer's truck in a stolen car, but he sped off when Palmer asked to exchange information with him.

Instead, 21-year-old Ebb Duhamel of Middletown, Ohio, is in jail facing multiple felony charges after leading local officers and deputies in a foot pursuit and search through Winchester Wednesday afternoon. He was captured 40 minutes later in a barn behind Gonyer Supply on East Washington Street.

Then he tried to escape through a second-floor window at the police station after his arrest.

"He might've played it cool and gotten away if he produced a license," Palmer said this morning. "But he decided to run."

Palmer was off duty, out of uniform and in his personal vehicle when he stopped at the corner of Vine and Jefferson streets and a Chevrolet Blazer backed into him at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Palmer said Duhamel stopped and asked if he was OK, but fled when Palmer asked to exchange information while they waited on the police.

"I didn't identify myself at all," Palmer said. "He took off."

Palmer followed the vehicle while calling 911, he said, and watched the car turn into Sequoia Village, an apartment complex with only one entrance and exit.

"When they went screaming into Sequoia Village, I knew they didn't know where they were," he said. "They (weren't) going nowhere."

By then, other officers started to arrive and the suspects started to run. One passenger, 18-year-old Shan N. Flannery of 340 Canewood Drive, was arrested and charged with fleeing or evading police, he said. A male juvenile from Winchester stayed in the car and was not charged, Palmer said.

Duhamel ran approximately one-eighth of a mile and hid in a barn near the Sylvania plant, he said, before officers surrounded the barn and arrested him without further incident.

"By the time we were chasing (him), we knew the suspect was from Ohio and the car was stolen," Palmer said. "Those types of people usually end up hiding in barns or outhouses."

Two days earlier, the department received a report of men matching the suspects' description in that vehicle brandishing a gun on Strode Station Circle, he said.

Officers also found a stolen handgun in the Chevrolet Blazer, which bore Ohio license plates but was stolen from Kentucky, Palmer said.

After he was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident, second-degree fleeing or evading police, receiving stolen property under $10,000, receiving stolen property (firearm) and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, officers added second-degree escape charges.

According to the citation, Duhamel raised a screen on an open window at the police station and appeared ready to jump from the second floor window.

Now Duhamel is in the Clark County Detention Center.

"If armed felons are going to back into someone, it's good they backed into the chief of police," Palmer said. "I got lucky … that he didn't get out with that gun and I wasn't in uniform."

Contact Fred Petke at fpetke@winchestersun.com.

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