A Lawrence County man who failed to pay for his fuel Tuesday afternoon at a Brownstown convenience store was arrested more than an hour later in a wooded area west of the county seat, police report.
Cody Lee Jent, 26, of Bedford, faces a charge of theft and two counts of resisting law enforcement stemming from the incident that began at about 2:15 p.m. when a clerk at the station told Jackson County Sheriff’s Department Officer Adam Nicholson that a man in a red Dodge Durango had failed to pay for his fuel.
Nicholson said in his report he had seen the man in the truck as he drove away from the Energy Plus station on Commerce Street (U.S. 50) on the west side of Brownstown.
Nicholson said he located the truck about a mile west of the county seat and took off after it.
The driver of the truck, later identified as Jent, failed to stop and turned north off of U.S. 50 onto County Road 350W and traveled about a quarter of a mile before stopping, Nicholson said.
At that point, Nicholson said he last saw the driver headed north on foot into a wooded area, and the man was ordered to drop a black object he had in his hand. The man refused to drop the item, and police assumed he may have been armed, Nicholson said.
Sheriff Michael Carothers and other county officers, including Lt. Darin Downs, officers Rob Henley and Rick Meyer and Reserve Officer Brent Terry, arrived in the area along with Brownstown officers John Long and John Reichenbacker and Chief Tom Hanner.
Long went to the north end of the woods and saw the man step out of the woods and then duck back in and head south.
County detectives Bob Lucas, Tom Barker and Ben Rudolph also arrived to help with the search. While searching and completing an inventory of the Durango, Lucas learned Jent was wanted out of Lawrence County for battery causing serious bodily injury, and the license plate on the Durango had been stolen from Florence, Kentucky.
Seymour Officer Adam Surface also brought his dog to the woods, and an Indiana State Police helicopter was called to assist, although the canopy of the woods was too thick to look for Jent from the air, Nicholson said.
A search of the wooded area conducted by Surface and other officers eventually led to the discovery and arrest of Jent, Nicholson said.
A review of the dash camera in Nicholson’s squad car showed the item Jent was carrying at the time he fled his vehicle was possibly a wallet.
Jent was transported by jail commander Charlie Murphy and booked into the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown at 6:01 p.m. Tuesday. He was being held without bond Wednesday pending his initial hearing in Jackson Circuit Court.