A 62-year-old Keystone Heights man was sentenced to 42 months in prison after pleading to running from deputies and attempting to ram a patrol car.
Alexander Gordon Cardenas pleaded to fleeing and eluding at a high rate of speed, driving with a suspended or revoked license, resisting an officer without violence, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, and possession or use of drug paraphernalia.
According to an arrest report, on July 8, Sheriff’s Detective Andrew Johnson noted an expired tag on the defendant’s 2004 Dodge truck near Starke’s Whispering Oaks Apartments and initiated a traffic stop. The defendant responded by fleeing east on State Road 100, where Sheriff’s Sgt. Logan Hough joined the pursuit at County Road 18. Cardenas turned off the state highway at Southeast 9th Avenue, near Tony’s Pizza, then continued into Clay County via County Road 18A, when the two officers discontinued the pursuit.
Johnson and Hough reported that moments later, they saw the Dodge truck back in Bradford County, headed toward their two patrol vehicles. Johnson said the defendant drove around Hough’s vehicle, then headed straight for his own, forcing him off the roadway to avoid a collision.
The two officers then chased the defendant on Southeast 9th Avenue, past the entrance to the Salvation Army’s Camp Keystone and to the avenue’s dead end, where Cardenas drove through a yard and crashed into a tree in the backyard. The suspect then left the vehicle and ran until stopped by Hough’s taser.
A search of the defendant’s vehicle yielded methamphetamine, needles, a syringe, and a glass pipe.
