A 15-year-old shooting suspect who escaped from a transport van in Montgomery County on Thursday was captured 500 miles away near Winchester, Virginia, Friday morning.
But it didn’t take long for him to try again, stealing a patrol car in a second escape attempt, police said.
According to Capt. John Heflin of the Frederick County (Virginia) Sheriff’s Office, police were told to be on the lookout for a Dodge Magnum with temporary
Tennessee tags containing a juvenile suspect from Montgomery County wanted in a shooting, burglary and escape.
Deputies spotted the car at about 9:10 a.m. and pulled it over, Heflin said. Santos, named by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, was a passenger riding with four young women from Clarksville. A deputy handcuffed Santos behind his back and placed him in the backseat of a police cruiser, then went back to the Dodge.
When the officer walked away, Santos maneuvered his cuffed hands under his feet and around to his front, then climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away, Heflin said.
Virginia State Police and Frederick County deputies chased the stolen cruiser. One deputy used a “pit maneuver,” hitting the stolen cruiser from behind, causing it to spin, Heflin said.
The car went on top of a concrete median and was boxed in by other police cars.
The teen was pulled out of the vehicle and taken to Winchester Medical Center to be treated for non-lifethreatening injuries, Heflin said.
No signs were found of the handcuffs or leg shackles Santos was wearing during his escape from Montgomery County.
Teen now facing charges in Virginia and Tennessee
Heflin said three of the women with the teen were questioned and released.
The fourth, Kassandra Santos, 22, whose exact relation to the teen was unknown, was being held without bond in Winchester on an extradition warrant, charged with being a fugitive from justice.
In Tennessee, she’s charged with accessory after the fact and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to MCSO warrants.
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office is petitioning to charge the juvenile with grand larceny, felony eluding police and escape in Virginia, Helfin said.
There was extensive damage to the two patrol cars that collided.
Heflin said he is not aware of any connection that the teen may have to Winchester and said he was probably passing through.
In Montgomery County, Santos is charged with aggravated assault and six counts of reckless endangerment in a drive-by shooting that injured a man on Northridge Drive Monday night and an unrelated burglary and weapons charge, according to MCSO spokesman Jamie Dexter.
An additional escape charge was added Thursday night.
Thursday’s escape in Montgomery County
At 12:35 p.m. Thursday, Santos and another juvenile broke a window latch to escape from a minivan as they were being driven from the Montgomery County Courts Center to a juvenile detention center in Maury County.
They escaped at a red light near the intersection of Highway 48/13 and Highway 149.
More than a dozen deputies and two K9s spent several hours searching, then other deputies continued the search overnight before getting word Friday morning that Santos had been caught.
He was still in handcuffs and shackles when he jumped out of the van window. It was unclear Friday how Santos got free of them before his arrest in Virginia.