Driver faces three felonies after chase

Published 10:44 am Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The suspect in a Friday night high-speed chase in Austin was charged Tuesday in Mower County Court with several felonies.

Duangchan Keobounhmee, 31, reportedly from Sacramento, Calif., was charged with theft, vehicle theft and fleeing officers in a vehicle.

The Steele County Sheriff’s Office issued a be-on-the-lookout report about a stolen car with North Dakota plates, and an Austin Police officer spotted the vehicle and called for backup. However, when officers initiated a traffic stop in Austin, Keobounhmee kept driving. Keobounhmee reportedly went south on 180th Street at 75 mph, turned onto County Road 4 and went into Freeborn County at 100 mph before turning around and heading back toward Austin.

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In all, six Austin police officers and three Mower County Sheriff’s deputies assisted in the chase.

According to the court complaint, an officer put a spike strip near the county line, which Keobounhmee hit with his driver’s side tires. Keoubounhmee continued at 55 mph, the complaint adds, avoided another spike strip and eventually stopped at Fourth Avenue and 13th Street NW. He refused to get out of the vehicle, so officers forced him from it and had to shock him with a Taser to put handcuffs on him. At the jail, he refused to give his name.

Keobounhmee is already charged in Mower County with driving a stolen vehicle, when he ran out of gas north of Austin and a nearby property owner notified authorities about him.

He is scheduled to be in court on Feb. 7.