photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A Lawrence Police Department patrol vehicle is pictured June 28, 2022.

A man was arrested Sunday after a vehicle that had been reported stolen crashed into a power pole in eastern Lawrence.

Officers were dispatched about 12:30 a.m. Sunday to the 1300 block of Vermont Street, Lawrence Police Department spokesperson Laura McCabe told the Journal-World in an email. She said that a man told officers that he witnessed his truck speeding away eastbound on 13th Street. A short time later, officers responded to the scene of a wreck at East 12th and Summit streets, where a power pole was struck, resulting in multiple downed power lines. Upon arrival, police “ultimately discovered that it was the stolen truck,” McCabe said in the email.

The first officer to arrive at the scene of the wreck saw a man running from the wreckage and ordered him to stop. The suspect was initially compliant but became combative when another officer arrived and was deemed to be “a danger to himself and others, and verbally incoherent,” McCabe said.

“Officers called in Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical to check him out, and medics determined he was not in need of any urgent medical care,” McCabe said.

According to Douglas County Jail booking logs, Thomas Obiel Price, of Lawrence, was booked into the jail around 1 a.m. Sunday on suspicion of theft of property or services — which included motor vehicle theft — interference with a law enforcement officer and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The booking log shows that he was being held on $2,250 cash or surety bond for each of the suspected offenses and that he posted bail around 11 a.m. Sunday.

McCabe was unsure if nearby services were affected by the downed power lines.