LITTLE ROCK — England police officer Rick Conyers was a little suspicious of the driver of the gold Ford Ranger pickup with Louisiana tags motoring through the city Christmas morning.
Within a few minutes of seeing the man, now identified as 18-year-old John Michael Fryday, Conyers was in a high-speed chase that ended when the man jumped out of the pickup in North Little Rock.
The pickup turned out to be stolen in Louisiana, where Fryday is from, according to police.
Officers from multiple agencies spent the next several hours unsuccessfully searching the Baring Cross neighborhood in North Little Rock for Fryday.
At 11:35 a.m., England police arrested Fryday, who had hitched a ride back to the city, Conyers said.
Conyers and England Police Chief Herman Hutton said Fryday faces charges of reckless driving, felony fleeing, aggravated assault on a police officer and five misdemeanor traffic charges.
Hutton said the pickup was particularly suspicious because this time of year there are burglars looking for things to steal.
Conyers, who has been with the department about six months, said he first noticed the unoccupied pickup parked on the shoulder of Arkansas 165 early in the morning. A few minutes later, he saw a man, later identified as Fryday, driving it through town.
The driver, Conyers said, didn’t use his turn signal when he abruptly turned into a private lot. The officer pulled in next to the man.
“He asked if I knew a certain female, and he was looking for a street that doesn’t belong in England,” Conyers said.
The man told Conyers that he planned to head north, thinking the road he was looking for was that way.
“[I told him] sorry I couldn’t help, and I wished him a Merry Christmas.”
Instead of heading north, however, Fryday headed back into town down a dead-end road, Conyers said.
“The way he was acting was suspicious,” Conyers said. “I followed him, and as soon as he saw me, he took off through two yards in his vehicle.”
Conyers said the driver twice tried to run his patrol car off the road, and he also slammed on his brakes in what Conyers perceived as an effort to cause Conyers to crash into the man’s pickup.
“He never slowed down,” the officer said, adding that not even high water on the road deterred the man.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 12/26/2009