How Not to Go from Reno to Fallon
There are so many ways to see Nevada on a Saturday morning. A respectable citizen may rise early, drink coffee, inspect the condition of the world, discover it still needs repair, and then go about his lawful business.
There are always a few enterprising souls, however, who prefer to begin the day by borrowing an automobile without permission and then conducting a high-speed tour of the state, with several sheriff’s offices and the Nevada Highway Patrol providing the complimentary escort. This particular excursion began before 6 a.m., when the Nevada Highway Patrol received an attempt-to-locate alert concerning a vehicle reported stolen in Reno.
The hour was early enough that most sensible people were still negotiating with their alarm clocks. Somewhere, however, two travelers were already making plans, though apparently not the sort of plans that survive contact with the Nevada Revised Statutes.
A little after 10:15 a.m., the Storey County Sheriff’s Office spotted the vehicle heading eastbound on Interstate 80. The deputies, being public servants of an inquisitive nature, attempted to stop it.
The driver responded in the traditional manner of a person who has suddenly remembered an appointment elsewhere: he accelerated. Thus began an interstate journey demonstrating, once again, the remarkable ability of a stolen automobile to create a great deal of employment for people who would rather be doing something else.
The Nevada Highway Patrol took over the pursuit as the vehicle continued east toward Fallon on U.S. 95. Nothing is more effective at turning an ordinary morning into an official incident than a vehicle fleeing down a Nevada highway with law enforcement in pursuit.
What might have been a quiet drive through the desert became a procession involving sirens, radios, deputies, troopers, and all the machinery required to persuade one automobile that it had reached the end of its recreational opportunities. The Churchill County Sheriff’s Office eventually joined the festivities and, near mile marker 32, deployed a tire-deflation device.
This proved to be an argument the automobile could not outrun. The vehicle stopped, bringing the great Nevada road tour to its unavoidable conclusion.
Two people were taken into custody. The male driver was booked into the Churchill County Detention Center on charges including felony eluding, child endangerment, and possession of a stolen vehicle, suggesting that the morning’s itinerary had been revised several times and none had been approved.
A passenger, a male juvenile, found himself in handcuffs and booked into the Churchill County Juvenile Probation Office after a brief foot pursuit. It was presumably the final leg of the journey, conducted on foot and without the assistance of the stolen automobile, which had by then lost its enthusiasm for travel.
The investigation remains ongoing, and additional charges could be filed. Nevada, having provided the road, the desert, the patrol cars, and the opportunity, now awaits the paperwork.
And so another Saturday morning passes into history—without quiet, but with a stolen car discovering that the fastest route from Reno to Fallon is still not fast enough to outrun Nevada law enforcement.
