Down to the rims, runaway teen girl in stolen Honda dodges Beaufort cops for miles

After stealing her mother’s car and crossing state lines, a 17-year-old girl from Georgia led Beaufort County police on an extended, winding car chase across St. Helena Island. The Wednesday morning pursuit drew dozens of residents into their front yards to watch the vehicles passing back and forth — even after a spike strip forced the suspect sedan to drive on its rims.

Deputies from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office were called just after 9 a.m. Wednesday to Toomer Road, a low-traffic side street in southern St. Helena. The caller told police a silver Honda Accord had “attempted to hit pedestrians” in the residential area.

Just a few minutes later, police received confirmation from Georgia police that the vehicle was reported stolen out of Screven County, which lies about 50 miles west of the Savannah area. Patrol officers soon learned the driver was a 17-year-old girl who had taken her mother’s car, making the nearly two-hour drive into northern Beaufort County with her 14-year-old brother in the passenger seat.

After the teen fled an attempted traffic stop in the area, more than a dozen sheriff’s deputies and one Highway Patrol trooper joined in the effort to catch her .

Throughout the approximately 35-minute pursuit, police saw the Honda swerving outside its lane, running stop signs and “brake-checking” police vehicles following behind it, an incident report says. At multiple points, strategically stationed deputies threw tire spikes in front of the car, but the teen avoided the traps through “aggressive lane swerving,” sometimes leaving the road entirely to drive around the strips.

Despite lasting significantly longer than most local police pursuits, the chase was contained to a small area — primarily Lands End Road, Seaside Road and the Fort Fremont area, according to sheriff’s office spokesperson Master Sgt. Danny Allen. The fleeing Honda briefly reached a top speed of 87 mph, although most of the chase played out at relatively low speeds as the teen slowed down to make U-turns and switch directions.

Finally, one set of spikes popped both of the Honda’s driver-side tires — but the teen continued to flee. After police threw more spikes targeting the passenger-side wheels, the car “ran off the road briefly, losing control” before swerving back onto Lands End Road and striking the front of a corporal’s patrol car. He withdrew from the chase due to the damage to his vehicle, according to the police report.

Video from bystanders on Lands End Road shows the damaged Honda passing by at a moderate speed, its deflated tires visibly tilting the car’s frame toward the driver’s side. Four sheriff’s vehicles trailed behind.

Not long after, the line of vehicles passed the homes again in the opposite direction. The driver and passenger in the Honda were seen waving at the camera through the car’s open windows.

“Doing it on flats, y’all,” said the woman recording the video. “I’m not making it up.”

As the police sirens faded out on the typically quiet rural street, the odor of burnt rubber hung in the air. “You can smell it,” remarked another woman, who had already joined others in the middle of the roadway to watch the chase continue.

The ordeal ended shortly before 10 a.m., when the 17-year-old returned to the area of Toomer Road and brought the car to a stop. While deputies detained the two occupants and called their mother, the trooper on scene began documenting the crash between the Honda and the sheriff’s vehicle.

Altogether, the teen was given tickets for driving without a license, reckless driving, failure to obey traffic devices, improper signals, a seatbelt violation, fleeing police, shifting lanes improperly and child endangerment, the last citation correlating to her 14-year-old brother who was in the vehicle. Her two criminal charges out of Beaufort County include hit-and-run and possession of a stolen vehicle.

The 17-year-old driver was medically evaluated at Beaufort Memorial Hospital before police transported her to the Department of Juvenile Justice. She is scheduled to appear in court for her nine traffic citations at the end of October.

The sluggish final minutes of the chase shaved the Honda’s driver-side tires down to the rims. Photos shared online by the girl’s mother showed the car had a broken headlight, significant front-end damage and thin, frayed rings of rubber where the tires used to be.

Beaufort County Sheriff P.J Tanner says his officers consider a number of factors when deciding whether to terminate a chase, including the time of day, weather conditions, the suspect’s speed or the amount of traffic in the area . Pursuits can be called off by individual patrol officers or their supervisors based on the risk posed to the public.

“This pursuit lasted a while because we decided that the risk factors were low, so we continued to pursue,” Tanner said of Wednesday’s incident, noting the low traffic volume on St. Helena at the time. Because of the frequent switchbacks as well as slowed speeds due to the deflated tires, he estimated the chase’s average speed was only about 20 mph across its half-hour span. “And some of that time was on rims.”