MORGAN COUNTY
Deputies with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office and Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, along with officers from the Athens-Clarke County Police Department and troopers with the Georgia State Patrol, arrested an Atlanta man on Feb. 5 who had managed to slip away from law enforcement twice over the weekend following a string of car thefts.
Simeon Immanuel White faces a felony charge of theft by receiving, felony theft by taking and two counts of obstruction of officers.
He is currently housed at the Clarke County jail.
Other charges are pending.
According to a Facebook post from the MCSO, “Our Criminal Investigation Unit has worked tirelessly all weekend to work multiple cases and bring this suspect into custody.”
According to Capt. Brandon Sellers of the MCSO, Morgan County received a report of a 2022 Ford Escape sitting in the middle of Crawford Road on the evening of Feb. 3 and dispatched a deputy to investigate.
When Deputy Charles Gillis arrived on the scene, he saw White walking away from the vehicle. Gillis attempted to make contact with White, who fled when the deputy approached him.
Further investigation revealed that the vehicle had been stolen out of Forsyth County, and the MCSO enlisted the aid of the Covington Police Department K-9 unit to hunt down the suspect.
White was spotted later that night near Bethany Road, and the Georgia State Patrol aviation unit joined the manhunt.
The agencies were unable to locate the suspect and called off the intense search around midnight according to Sellers. However, heavy patrols continued in the area throughout the night, according to the MCSO.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 4, White reportedly stole a truck from a Greensboro Highway address.
State troopers later spotted the truck, and White fled on the Athens bypass at speeds reaching 106 mph, according to Sellers.
A state trooper executed a PIT maneuver on the truck White was driving and caused him to crash, but once again he got out, fled on foot and managed to elude authorities.
White stole two more cars over the next 36 hours in Oconee County.
At around noon on Feb. 5, White was spotted in the area of Epps Bridge Road, where Best Buy and several restaurants are located.
Sellers and four other Morgan County deputies tracked White down and pinned him inside a subdivision where he was taken into custody.