Santa Barbara – George Elder Jolly, a 35-year-old resident of Hollywood, led Santa Barbara County law enforcement on a wild freeway chase that inevitably ended with his arrest on Tuesday, June 16th.
It was just after midnight when a Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s patrol unit conducted a traffic stop upon the car being driven by Jolly through Carpinteria at speeds in excess of the posted speed limit. When the SBSD deputy made contact with Jolly, he was unable to provide personal identification or registration documents for the vehicle. According to SBSD Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, it was at that point that Jolly summarily gunned his engine, “almost striking the deputy with his car” before entering U.S. 101 northbound toward Santa Barbara.
The Hermosillo exit from the 101 Freeway North, where Jolly couldn’t make the turn.
With the deputy in hot pursuit and with Jolly driving “recklessly in his efforts to evade the deputy,” the two speeding vehicles approached Montecito, whereupon Jolly attempted to exit the freeway at the northbound Hermosillo Drive off-ramp, notorious among locals as the shortest hairpin-turn offramp within the county. Jolly, apparently without the benefit of “local knowledge”, failed to negotiate the offramp and found himself at a dead stop in a large clump of bushes.
At that point, Jolly alighted from his vehicle and ran off into the night. With officers from the Santa Barbara Police Department and California Highway Patrol arriving at the scene, a perimeter was quickly established. With the help of a K-9 unit, the search for Jolly was a short one; he was soon located hiding in a nearby backyard shed and taken into custody without further incident.
The subsequent search of Jolly’s vehicle revealed six pounds of methamphetamine, a quarter pound of heroin, cash, and drug paraphernalia, all with an estimated value well in excess of $50,000.
Jolly was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, evading law enforcement, resisting/delaying a peace officer, exceeding the speed limit, driving without a license, possession of heroin for sale, transporting heroin, possession of methamphetamine for sale, and transporting methamphetamine.
As he also had a Los Angeles County warrant pending for drug possession and sales, he remains in custody on a no-bail hold. He had been arrested by L.A. Sheriff’s Deputies from the Malibu/Lost Hills station on February 11 and charged with possession of a controlled substance for sales. He was listed as a Hollywood area transient at that time. He currently resides at an apartment near Hollywood High School.
