Payloader pursuit in South Dakota caught on camera

BROOKINGS, S.D. (KELO) — A Brookings man is facing a long list of charges tonight, accused of stealing a payloader and leading deputies on a wild chase on the edge of town and it was all caught on camera.

Reco Jones faces nine charges including grand theft, aggravated eluding, and intentional damage to property.

Deputies say they’ve been involved in a lot of chases before, but never one involving a payloader.

The Brookings County Sheriff’s Office gave us dash cam video from the pursuit.

It all unfolded Sunday afternoon during a rain storm when they got a report of a payloader driving erratically into oncoming traffic.

“When you’re talking about this big heavy piece of machinery obviously it’s a very large piece of equipment that could easily strike other vehicles or take up a majority of the road we have concerns there,” Kevin Murfield said.

Don: And you don’t know how it’s going to end.

Kevin: Exactly any pursuit at any time you have no idea what the outcome is, why is this person running from us, obviously they don’t want to have contact with law enforcement, so that’s always in the back of your head, and there’s always safety concerns, not just for the officers, but also the driver too.

During the chase, another deputy turned around and joined the pursuit.

They tried to stop the payloader, but Jones refused to pull over.

At one point, you see him drift off the road, but he manages to pull it back onto the highway.

Authorities pursued the payloader into the dead end of a trailer court where authorities say it hit a mobile home and a shed, although you can’t tell from the dash cam video.

During the pursuit, deputies learned the machine was stolen from a Brookings business.

“Got the owner of the payloader on the line, it was stolen from LG Everest.”

Jones got out of the payloader and tried to run, but he was arrested and put in jail.

At this time they don’t know if drugs or alcohol were involved.

“We recovered his vehicle that was driven by the suspect to that location. but he actually ended up crushing his own vehicle with the payloader, so we tried to do a search the best we could, but we couldn’t find anything that would lead to drugs or alcohol,” Murfield said.

This pursuit was one they won’t soon forget and it was all caught on camera.

“In my nine years, I’ve never been a part of any heavy machinery pursuits or anything like that speaking with our patrol sergeant, sergeant Langstrat he and I compared notes and the closest thing that comes to something like this was a combine in a pursuit in one of our smaller communities,” Murfield said.

Incredibly no one was hurt. Jones’ next court appearance is May 13th.

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