Chase suspect appears in court

Thursday, January 19, 2006

(1/19/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- The man charged with sparking a wild high speed pursuit made his first appearance in court Thursday morning.

The dangerous high speed police chase led officers in circles all over Houston before coming to a crashing halt in a wrong-way head-on collision with an innocent driver.

Jatinderjit Mann, 31, is being held at the Harris County jail. He made his first court appearance Thursday morning in probable cause court around 4am, where the judge read the charges to Mann.

"You've been charged with evading arrest with a motor vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon," said the judge.

The judge set bond at $5,000 on the evading arrest charge and $50,000 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police say the deadly weapon in this case was his car when he struck another vehicle Wednesday afternoon.

The suspect said very little in court. He kept asking if he could speak to the British Embassy. The judge told him he could speak to the British Consulate. Mann is a British citizen.

Mann was in a BMW and was traveling at very high rates of speed as law enforcement agencies tailed him for over an hour. The chase began when a deputy responded to a disturbance outside a restaurant in Spring.

The chase finally ended with a wrong-way head-on collision on the northbound entrance ramp to the Southwest Freeway at Shepherd. The suspect crashed into another car, trapping the driver. A female passenger was apparently uninjured and immediately jumped from the vehicle to run to the back seat and check on an infant. The baby was secured in a car seat, and appeared to be unharmed. The driver of that car was taken to an area hospital. The victims are all out of the hospital and doing fine.

The suspect climbed out the sun roof of his car with his hands up. He was taken into custody without further incident.

Authorities began chasing the man around 1:45pm Wednesday. At one point, no officers were even directly behind him. He managed to elude the Channel 13 helicopter, which can go 100 miles per hour.

Over the course of the chase, the man drove on nearly every freeway in Houston, including I-45, the Hardy Toll Road, Beltway 8, I-10, Highway 290 and Highway 59.

Officers attempted to use spikes to flatten his tires, but those were ineffectual. Multiple law enforcement agencies joined in the pursuit, occasionally sending word ahead to have more officers waiting.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

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