Video of Webster Parish police chase: escapee takes a dive in a Tacoma

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High speed chase ends in crash in Dixie Inn restaurant parking lot

A high speed chase this afternoon in Webster Parish ended when the suspect's vehicle went airborne and landed on top of a woman's car in a Dixie Inn restaurant's parking lot.

Fortunately, said Sheriff Gary Sexton, the woman who was seated in her vehicle was not injured.

Webster Parish sheriff's deputies have two men in custody. One is a Caddo Parish inmate who walked away from a work release program on Feb. 8.

The driver, 18-year-old Kevonte DeKorey Austin, of Greenwood, is a Department of Corrections employee who is accused of stealing an employee's pickup truck from the business to which he was assigned for work release. It's not the same pickup truck he crashed Tuesday.

Sexton said his deputies began pursuing a pickup truck occupied by two men that had been reported as stolen from Shreveport. Deputies got the truck stopped, but the passenger bailed and the driver sped off. The passenger was taken into custody.

The chase at "excessive speeds" took them north on U.S. Highway 371 to Springhill. Then they looped back south toward Dixie Inn following a quick turn-around avoiding a separate accident scene that was blocking the highway.

"If you ask me he was doing 100 miles an hour," said Springhill Fire Chief Billy Rasberry, who was working the scene of the accident blocking Highway 371 in Springhill. "But when I saw him he was coming off the road, I bet he was coming off the road at 60, 65 miles an hour."

Deputies put out spike strips north of the intersection of U.S. 371 and U.S. Highway 80. The pickup hit the strips and went airborne about 8 to 10 feet, Sexton said.

The truck bounced off the top of a Toyota Corolla sitting in the parking lot of Nicky's restaurant. ...

Tacoma flies thru the air and lands on another car