photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The driver of the motorcycle is pictured after a police chase on North Second Street on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28

The driver of a speeding — and allegedly stolen — motorcycle that crashed Thursday on North Second Street, seriously injuring a woman, was charged Friday with multiple felonies.

Dillon Paul Herken, 26, of Easton, was arrested immediately after the fiery crash and was charged a day later with aggravated battery, flee and elude, theft of a motorcycle, unlawful vehicle registration and operating a motor vehicle without the proper license.

photo by: Kim Callahan

A police chase on North Second Street on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, ended in a fiery motorcycle crash.

Herken was fleeing a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper on a 2009 Yamaha around 3:15 p.m. Thursday in the 600 block of North Second Street when he crashed into the back of a Jeep Compass, as the Journal-World reported. The crash is suspected to have severely injured Herken’s 27-year-old female passenger on the motorcycle. Both were thrown from the motorcycle, which caught fire, and later were taken to Stormont Vail hospital in Topeka. The two people in the Jeep, a 70-year-old driver from Oskaloosa and a 17-year-old passenger from Independence, Missouri, were reportedly not injured, according to the Highway Patrol.

The Highway Patrol said Friday that a trooper attempted to stop Herken for a registration violation on U.S. Highway 24 just east of Kansas Highway 16 in Leavenworth County. Herken failed to stop and a pursuit ensued, continuing into Douglas County, where Herken turned left at the U.S. 24/40/59 junction and fled into Lawrence, the Highway Patrol told the Journal-World.

Court records indicate that Herken was due to appear, but did not show, in Douglas County District Court 15 minutes before the crash occurred in relation to a misdemeanor stalking charge.

Herken has had numerous run-ins with the law in Douglas, Leavenworth and Atchison counties, including convictions for theft, identity theft, violations of drug and gun laws and various driving infractions, including multiple incidents of speeding.

He made his first court appearance in the crash case on Friday afternoon, when his bond was set at $100,000 and an attorney was appointed for him. His next court date is Wednesday.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

A man is taken away in an ambulance and handcuffs after a police chase in North Lawrence on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025.