BRINNON —
A high-speed chase along North Olympic Peninsula back roads ended with a 26-year-old Port Angeles man up a tree, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.
The man was found hiding in branches about 60 feet up a cedar tree after he fled from deputies, according to the sheriff’s office.
Jason W. Tuff was booked into Jefferson County jail for investigation of attempting to elude a police vehicle, driving with a suspended license, obstructing a law enforcement officer and reckless endangerment.
The pursuit began at 11:48 a.m. Thursday on U.S. Highway 101 near Mount Walker when Tuff allegedly speed away from the approaching deputy at speeds over 80 mph.
The deputy, Shane Stevenson, said he had run a check on the 1998 Ford Explorer and found that the owner had a suspended license and several outstanding arrest warrants.
Tuff abandoned the vehicle on a logging road near Camp Parson’s Boy Scout Camp, Stevenson said.
He and other deputies, assisted by the State Patrol, said they located Tuff up the tree with the help of a K-9 unit.
At first, Tuff refused to climb down, but eventually he agreed to, deputies said.
A 21-year-old Sequim woman who had been a passenger in the vehicle turned herself in and was not charged, the sheriff’s office said. She was not named.
“It was determined that she had been terrified during the attempted elude and had attempted to talk the suspect into stopping,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement issued Saturday.
“She said that at one point she had been knocked unconscious after her head struck the interior of the vehicle while the driver made an abrupt turn. The woman is considered a victim and was released at the scene.”
