Local teens steal car from restaurant parking lot, attempt to elude police

A pair of local teens face robbery, assault, theft and numerous other felony criminal charges after allegedly stealing a vehicle from a Corbin restaurant, and leading police on a wild chase that ended in Woodbine.
Police say Nicholas Ray Jones, 18, of Rockholds, and Adam Eric Pennington, 19, of Barbourville stole a 1998 blue Isuzu Trooper parked at Joy’s Kountry Kookin Monday afternoon as the vehicle’s owner Doug Wyatt attempted to stop them. Wyatt, in attempt to hang onto to the car, was dragged a few feet and dumped onto a nearby sidewalk before calling police to report the incident. He suffered only minor injuries.
Corbin Police Officer Rusty Hedrick spotted the vehicle near the Root Beer Stand on Cumberland Falls Hwy. and attempted to initiate a traffic stop. A chase ensued.
Hedrick pursued the vehicle onto the Corbin Bypass, then off onto KY Hwy. 26 into the Woodbine community. Knox County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Lawson joined the chase and was rammed by the teens in the process. His cruiser suffered some front-end damage.
Jones, who police say was driving the vehicle, nearly hit a Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement Officer conducting a traffic stop on Hwy. 26 when the chase began.
“The KVE officer was in the road on the traffic stop. He was in the middle of the road trying to get him to stop,” Hedrick said. “He just blew right by him and missed him by about a foot.”
Jones crossed the CSX railway tracks onto Archer Street where the pair attempted to elude police on foot. Authorities say the transmission on the car started to malfunction.
Hedrick and Lawson chased Jones in behind Woodbine Baptist Church and captured him.
“We were on foot for about two minutes,” Hedrick said. “[Lawson] ran around one side and tackled him. I ran around the other side. When we got him, he just laid there … I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said ‘being stupid, I guess.’ He’s right. He was just being stupid.”
Hedrick said the teens seemed intent on simply stealing the vehicle with no other apparent motive.
Corbin Police Officer Shannon Jones arrested Pennington, the passenger, without any further incident.
Both men now face first-degree robbery charges, auto theft, second-degree assault, first-degree wanton endangerment, first-degree wanton endangerment on a police officer (two counts), fleeing and evading police, and two degrees of criminal mischief.
Pennington and Jones were both lodged in the Whitley County Detention Center.
An investigation into the case is continuing.