HOWE, Texas – A 21-year-old Howe woman has been booked into the Grayson County Jail on a number of charges for her role in the theft of a marked Howe Police patrol vehicle Friday morning.
At approximately 9:20 a.m., an investigator with the Texas Office of the Attorney General called the Howe Police Department to request assistance with a woman in her care who was experiencing a mental health crisis. The officer went to the Dollar General store on L.B. Kirby Avenue in Howe and met with the investigator who said she was transporting the woman from Howe to an area hospital for evaluation when the woman became combative and delusional.
The officer and a local constable detained the woman and sat her in the rear seat of the officer’s patrol vehicle. The woman was able to maneuver her handcuffs to the front of her body, climb through a narrow window in the partition separating the front and rear seats of the patrol vehicle, and drive away.
She drove north on U.S. Highway 75 and eventually exited onto the east service road of the highway. The vehicle became disabled when the woman ran over a number of curbs which destroyed the four tires on the 2018 Dodge Charger, and it came to a stop on the east service road of the highway several blocks north of FM 1417.
Officers from surrounding agencies responded to the call and detained the woman until Howe officers arrived and arrested her for Escape, Evading Arrest with a Motor Vehicle, and Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle. She was booked into the Grayson County Jail. No other vehicles were damaged during the woman’s flight and she admitted to officers that she had recently used methamphetamine