Warning: the video contains language you may consider offensive.
ALONG THE ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI STATE LINES — A truck driver recently led multiple law enforcement agencies on a wild chase before an hours-long standoff with a machete.
The chase began in Mobile, Alabama and eventually crossed state lines into Mississippi. Video of the incident was captured by another driver’s dashcam just after the truck ran an ambulance off the road.
A person reporting the aggressive trucking to the Mobile Police Department can be heard saying:
Yes, ma’am, we have an 18-wheeler that ran an ambulance and another truck off the road.
The 18-wheeler then proceeded to run another truck off the road.
“He just ran another one off the road,” the man on the phone said.
Another man in the vehicle that’s filming the errant 18-wheeler occasionally interjects with various shouts of excitement and profanity at the scene unfolding before his eyes.
“Come on, we’re gonna get this motherfucker,” the second man said.
Police now say that the truck was allegedly driven by 35-year-old Michael Troy Mack.
Mack is currently in custody and facing felony pursuit charges from at least one law enforcement agency–and possibly many others.
The full list of the associated agencies who were at first eluded:
(1) the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department; (2) the Mississippi Highway Patrol; (3) the Alabama Highway Patrol; (4) the Federal Bureau of Investigation; (5) the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives; (6) the Ocean Springs Police Department; (7) the Pascagoula Police Department; (8) the Gautier Police Department; (9) the Moss Point Police Department; and (10) the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department.
After finally being forced to stop on Interstate 10 near Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, Mack allegedly emerged from his vehicle brandishing a machete–forcing a retreat by multiple officers and sheriff’s deputies. Mack then reportedly jumped back into the cab and barricaded himself there for hours.
Police say they attempted to negotiate a surrender but that didn’t work so they shot tear gas and smoke bombs into his truck. Mack is said to have surrendered to authorities some time after the chemical weapons were used against him. In the end, no one was hurt.
“We knew that he had a machete because when he got into his vehicle after he was first contacted by law enforcement, it was seen,” Chase Elkins with the Mississippi Highway Patrol told the dual ABC/CBS affiliated station WLOX in Biloxi, Mississippi.
“He never threatened us with it or threatened to do harm to himself or us,” Elkins continued. “He just had it in the truck, and we didn’t know what his intentions were. We didn’t know what else he had in the vehicle. The unknown was what caused us to use so much caution.”
Mack is alleged to have run a total of four vehicles off the road and police say his motive is still unclear.
[Image via WKRG screengrab]
