Overview
- Dashcam and bodycam footage shows deputies stopping a pickup on U.S. 1, with 60-year-old registered sex offender Darnell Hairston fleeing on foot before tripping in traffic and being captured.
- Video also shows a 15-year-old driving off in the truck, ramming a deputy’s cruiser during a brief chase, crashing, and surrendering at the wrecked vehicle.
- A newly released 911 call from a citizen who recognized Hairston as a sex offender helped deputies locate and stop the truck.
- Investigators report the 11-year-old said he was choked unconscious, threatened with a knife and a gun, tied up, hidden on the truck floorboard for days, and told to give deputies a false name.
- Hairston faces multiple felonies including kidnapping and aggravated child abuse and is held without bond, while the teen is charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle and is being reviewed as a possible co-conspirator; officials have not detailed the child’s medical condition.