March 22, 2021 – Ventura County, Ca.
Sometimes a suspect just won’t submit to arrest peacefully. Beyond the usual physical altercations with suspects, occasionally arresting cops become the targets of deadly mayhem.
That’s how events unfolded early in the afternoon of March 18th in a hotel parking lot in Simi Valley, close to the county’s border with Los Angeles County. According to Simi Valley Police Department spokesman Commander Steve Shorts, at 2:40 p.m., deputies attached to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Auto Theft Task Force spotted a vehicle reported stolen earlier in the day.
As deputies set up a perimeter of unmarked patrol vehicles around the suspect car in the Grand Vista Hotel parking lot, detectives the suspect vehicle where 36-year-old Simi Valley resident Timothy Arthur Jones sat behind the wheel. As the detectives approached, Jones hit the gas and “slammed the vehicle into an unmarked detective’s car.”
Jones then accelerated the suspect vehicle, crashing through two parked civilian cars to “break free of the police perimeter.” At that point, the chase was on, with Jones fleeing eastbound on Highway 118 at speeds approaching 100 mph.
Several miles later, the pursuing deputies found the suspect car abandoned. Jones was spotted fleeing on foot, but was “quickly caught.” He was taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism, with his bail set at $500,000.
