From Staff Reports
The keen eye and quick thinking of a Mississippi Highway Patrolman on Monday led to the recovery of a stolen vehicle and a stolen firearm, as well as the arrests of one young adult and a juvenile.
Trooper Taylor Shows, an MHP Public Information Officer, was traveling south along Miss. 63 near Leakesville Monday morning and encountered a vehicle traveling 95 in a 65 MPH speed zone. Shows initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle, and that’s when things got interesting.
According to reports, Shows noticed something off about the paint job on the Chevy S-10 pickup, as well as multiple empty spray paint cans in the bed of the truck. The vehicle did not have a tag on it, but when Shows ran the VIN number for the truck, it came back as having been reported stolen out of Moss Point.
He took the driver of the truck into custody at the scene. MHP had not released the names of the suspect on Tuesday morning, but according to the Greene County Jail Docket, 19-year-old Dedric Mitchell, of Kreola Ave, Moss Point, was booked on charges related to the incident.
While Trooper Shows was securing Mitchell into the back seat of his MHP cruiser, one of the two juvenile passengers in the pickup, used the opportunity to jump into the driver’s seat of the pickup and sped away.
Other troopers working in the area were alerted to the situation and within a few minutes had the vehicle stopped again, without incident. During a subsequent search of the vehicle, officers discovered a firearm and soon determined the 9mm Glock handgun had also been reported stolen out of Gautier.
Mitchell is being charged with possession of stolen vehicle and possession of stolen gun, along with multiple traffic violations. As of mid-day Tuesday, he was still being held in the Greene County Jail in Leakesville.
The juvenile driver was also arrested and charged with assorted traffic violations and was transferred to a juvenile detention center. Further charges could be forthcoming pending youth court proceedings. The second juvenile was not charged with any crimes and was released into the custody of parents on Monday.
