Grand Prairie Police Arrest Man After Chase

Grand Prairie police arrested a man early Friday after he evaded arrest and led officers on a chase with two others in the vehicle - one of them an 8-year-old child. 

An officer pulled over a pickup truck with a defective tail light at about 12:45 a.m. in the 4100 block of Lake Ridge Parkway in south Grand Prairie, police said.

During the conversation with the occupants of the car, officers determined the passenger to be Jonathan Lafitte Johnson, 28, who was the truck's owner, according to the police report.

Johnson initially told the officer his name was Larry Robinson, 36, of Mount Pleasant, the report said, but later revealed his true identity.

According to police, a records check of Johnson revealed he had four outstanding arrest warrants for various offenses.

Dash camera video, obtained by NBC DFW, showed the Grand Prairie officer who initiated the traffic stop, and an assisting officer, order Johnson out from the passenger seat of the truck to submit to an arrest.

After the initial officer informed Johnson that he was under arrest, Johnson leapt into the lap of the driver, his cousin, hit the accelerator and forced the truck to drive off, according to the police report.

Once the a chase ensued, the video showed the truck come to a stop a few hundred yards ahead and the original driver, who has not been charged with a crime, open the door and run away before the truck speeds off again.

It is at this point in the video where one can hear the officer report an additional concern over his radio: "[There is a] child in the back seat of the car."

That 8-year-old boy, the younger brother of Johnson, was riding in the extended cab backseat of the truck.

After a chase that winded its way through south Grand Prairie neighborhoods the driver pulls into his own driveway, in the 1000 block of Fair Oaks Drive, stops and attempts to run away.

The police report states that an officer used a stun gun on Johnson two times before taking him into custody.

The suspect's younger brother is later seen on camera running away from the truck and toward the house.

Johnson's mother told NBC DFW that he "panicked" at the fear of going to jail, and that he would never purposefully put his younger brother in danger.

Police have charged Johnson with evading arrest and endangering a child.  

Contact Us