Three people were arrested after a vehicle fled from police in Olathe late Thursday night and a Lenexa Police cruiser later deployed a Grappler device on Interstate 35 to stop the vehicle.
According to local police officials, nobody was injured during the incident though paramedics were called to tend to one of the three suspects on the scene near where the vehicle was stopped.
The incident began in Olathe just before 11 p.m. Thursday
The Post received comments from both Olathe and Lenexa police officials on Friday.
Sergeant John Moncayo, spokesperson for the Olathe Police Department, confirmed that an officer attempted to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation near the intersection of S. Strang Line Road and W. 123rd Street at 10:53 p.m. Thursday.
Moncayo said the vehicle then fled from the officer and eventually began heading north on I-35.
Lenexa Police spokesperson, Master Police Officer Danny Chavez, told the Post that Lenexa officers successfully used a Grappler Police Bumper device to stop the vehicle that had failed to yield for Olathe officers.
Grappler Police Bumpers are a relatively new technology in which a heavy-duty net is deployed from the front of a police car, intended to wrap around the rear tires of another vehicle in order to bring it to a controlled stop.
KMBC reported late last year that Lenexa Police were the first law enforcement agency to use grapplers and that other Kansas City area agencies have also started using the devices.
On Thursday night, the grappler dragged the suspect vehicle to a stop in the left lane of northbound Interstate 35 just north of 67th Street in Merriam.
“We took the driver and two occupants into custody,” Chavez said.
Three people taken into custody at the scene
A reporter was near the stop location just after 11 p.m. and observed one man being taken into custody along the right shoulder of the southbound lanes of I-35, near Aristocrat Motors.
Overland Park firefighters and Johnson County Med-Act paramedics were called to the roadside when the man said he was having difficulty breathing.
Paramedics treated the man on the shoulder of the Interstate. He was not transported by the ambulance.
Two women were arrested on the northbound side of the highway near where the suspect car had been stopped by the grappler.
“The driver was issued citations by Olathe and Merriam for traffic violations committed and later booked at the ADC [Adult Detention Center] for a felony warrant out of Missouri,” Chavez said in his statement. “The two female passengers were taken into custody for possession of meth.”
Two suspects remain in custody, one posted bond
Johnson County Sheriff’s Office booking logs online showed that all three were booked into the jail shortly after 3 a.m. Friday.
The man, a 41-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri, remained in custody on what Sheriff’s Office records show to be a misdemeanor theft charge out of Roeland Park.
Both women, a 55-year-old from Olathe and a 37-year-old from Blue Springs, Missouri, made their first court appearances on Friday afternoon.
They were each charged with one count of felony possession of methamphetamine and a misdemeanor for possession of drug paraphernalia.
The Olathe woman used a bail bonds service to post her $2,500 bond, and she was released from the jail at 3:10 p.m. Friday.
The Blue Springs woman remains in sheriff’s office custody on a $2,500 bond.
Both women are scheduled to appear in court again on Wednesday, March 20.
