photo by: Sara Shepherd

A tow truck pulls a truck up the embankment of the Wakarusa River near the bridge at East 1400 Road, Wednesday, May 2, 2018. The truck was involved in a prolonged police chase that began near downtown Lawrence.

A pickup fleeing police went off-road and crashed over the bank of the Wakarusa River Wednesday afternoon just outside Lawrence.

Police said the driver — an armed robbery suspect — was taken into custody at the scene and was then taken to the hospital for treatment of nonlife-threatening injuries he suffered in the crash. He was identified as Theoplis Lee Ellis, 27, of Kansas City, Mo., according to a Lawrence police news release.

During the pursuit, a police vehicle also was involved in an accident with an unrelated driver at the intersection of 25th and Iowa streets, resulting in minor injuries to the civilian driver, Officer Drew Fennelly said.

The incident began unfolding shortly after 11:20 a.m. in North Lawrence, with a brief police chase that was called off because the driver was heading into downtown.

Fennelly said Lawrence police officers tried to stop a green Dodge pickup driven by a man believed to have committed a previous armed robbery. As the truck drove toward downtown, police terminated their pursuit “due to safety concerns.”

But over an hour later, the truck resurfaced downtown.

The Journal-World observed it speeding around a corner from Massachusetts Street onto Seventh Street, then driving through a red light at Vermont Street toward Kentucky Street.

According to Fennelly:

About 12:40 p.m., after the truck was observed westbound on Seventh Street and witnesses reported it driving recklessly on Iowa Street, “officers swarmed the area.”

Officers spotted the pickup driving south on Iowa and tried to stop it, but the driver did not stop and continued onto Kansas Highway 10 with officers in pursuit.

“Somewhere between Michigan Street and Louisiana Street the suspect vehicle left the highway to the south and officers lost sight of the vehicle as it traveled off road,” Fennelly said in an email. “A county deputy in the area then located the vehicle a short time later, wrecked.”

photo by: Nick Krug

Law enforcement officers gather around a bridge over the Wakarusa River following a police chase that began in Lawrence and ended south of the city with the suspect vehicle crashing into the river, Wednesday, May 2, 2018.

The pickup had driven through a field and over a berm, and it came to rest at the bottom of a steep embankment leading to the water, not far from the East 1400 Road bridge over the Wakarusa River. By 2:15 p.m. a towing crew had pulled it back up the embankment and loaded it onto a flatbed truck.

Fennelly said the driver, after being released by the hospital, would be transported to the jail. Information on his potential charges was not immediately available.

Fennelly said Wednesday afternoon he could not immediately confirm whether the suspect got out of the truck at the scene before being captured, or the date of the robbery he was suspected of being involved in, and that police were still investigating.

Regarding the crash involving the officer, Fennelly said that occurred at the intersection of 25th and Iowa streets, while the marked police vehicle was involved in the pursuit of the pickup.

An eastbound car entered the intersection and collided with the southbound police vehicle, Fennelly said. He said the officer was not injured, and the woman driving the car was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

Fennelly said the police department’s Accident Investigation Unit was conducting an investigation into that collision.

View Map