BOLIVAR, Mo. (AP) – Prosecutors have charged a man accused of intentionally hitting and seriously injuring a southwest Missouri sheriff’s deputy during a high-speed police chase last week.
Online court records show Seth Hay, 36, was charged Monday with three felony assault counts, kidnapping and resisting arrest in the Friday incident that left 55-year-old Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Westbrook hospitalized with broken bones and a head trauma.
Officials said Hay, who had recently be released from prison, told detectives he fled police who were seeking to question him in a domestic abuse case because he did not want to go back to prison, television station KYTV reported. Investigators said Westbrook was standing on the side of a road waiting to throw out tire-flattening spike strips when Hay hit Westbrook’s patrol car, which then hit Westbrook, throwing the deputy 50 feet.
The kidnapping charge stems from Hay having a passenger in his vehicle when he allegedly led police on the chase, prosecutors said. The passenger told police he told Hay to pull over when the chase began and said he tried to get deputies’ attention by waving and yelling out the passenger window.
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