An Ocala man was jailed early Monday morning after being accused of fleeing from a Marion County sheriff’s deputy and running three stop signs.
The deputy was conducting a routine patrol in the area of Marion Oaks Boulevard when he saw a black Volkswagen Jetta heading south on SW 29th Terrace Road at a high rate of speed. He attempted to catch up to the vehicle, which was traveling at speeds “well above” the posted 30 mph limit and saw the driver run through stop signs along SW 29th Terrace Road, a sheriff’s office report states.
The deputy eventually caught up with the Volkswagen and activated his overhead emergency lights. The vehicle pulled into a residence at 16025 SW 29th Court Rd. and the driver, 19-year-old John Wesley Hanks III, approached the deputy, the report says.
The deputy told Hanks, who had only a Florida identification card, that he was being placed under arrested. He patted him down and then placed him in the back seat of his patrol vehicle, the report says.
As deputies attempted to speak with Hanks’ mother at the residence, he allegedly slipped his hand through the bars of the window of the patrol vehicle, opened the rear door and ran north on SW 29th Terrace Road. A K-9 deputy and his dog responded to the scene and tracked Hanks to the southwest of the residence in a thick wooded area where he was taken into custody a second time, the report says.
Hanks was transported to the Marion County Jail. He admitted to deputies that he ran from them because he was afraid of going to jail for driving without a license, the report says.
Hanks was charged with operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver’s license and escape. He also was charged with domestic battery and probation violations for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and robbery with a weapon. He was being held on $11,500 bond on the new charges and no bond on the previous charges and is due in court Feb. 19 and March 3.
Hanks also was arrested in June 2018 along Joseph Darius Delvin Jackson and Shenie S. Superville after two men were spotted outside a minimart wearing dark hoodies and backpacks. One had a white mask covering his face and the other a bandana with a white pattern on it covering his face. Hanks was charged with loitering or prowling and carrying a concealed weapon/unlicensed firearm.