Arlington felon keeps running, keeps getting caught

MARYSVILLE — If his past is any indication, Jerry Bogart doesn’t like to stop for the cops.

Over the years, the Arlington man has led police on high-speed chases across miles of Snohomish County roads. He once tried to outrun police from behind the wheel of a 23-foot stolen motor

home. During another pursuit, Bogart blew through a dozen stop signs, ran other drivers off the road, struck and killed a dog, and narrowly missed hitting police officers.

He’s spent years locked behind bars, often committing new crimes within a couple months of being freed. Bogart has eight felony and 25 misdemeanor convictions.

He’s 34, and he’s in trouble with the law again.

Bogart is accused of leading a sheriff’s deputy on a high-speed chase the day after Christmas. Police began hunting for Bogart after he was reported to be a suspect in a theft in Marysville. A woman told police Bogart came to her house about 1:30 a.m. to collect on a $60 debt. Bogart was told to come back the next day. A witness reported hearing a loud crash in the garage and discovering a hatchet embedded in the woman’s car, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor John Stansell wrote. The driver’s-side window was busted out and her purse was gone. Witnesses gave police a description of Bogart and his red pickup.

The deputy spotted the truck on 20th Street SE and attempted to stop the driver. The pickup hit 90 mph, raced across the U.S. 2 trestle and eventually blazed into north Everett. The pickup ran a red light and stop sign, and raced through a residential neighborhood at 70 mph.

The chase came to a end when the pickup drove over a curb, crashed into a light pole and ran into a security fence near a school. The suspect, identified as Bogart, ran from the truck, only to be scooped up about 45 minutes later, court papers said.

“Why didn’t you just shoot me?” Bogart allegedly yelled at the deputy.

Prosecutors last week charged Bogart with felony eluding — a charge Bogart has failed to outrun in the past.

He’s out of jail and scheduled to answer to the charge next month in Snohomish County Superior Court. If convicted, he’s facing another prison sentence.

Bogart was released from prison in January 2009 after serving five years of a seven-year sentence for an assault conviction. He was accused of swinging a wooden ax handle at man who said he was trying to stop Bogart from stealing some speakers. Bogart was chased off after the man pulled out a gun and fired it into the ground.

Before that, Bogart had just finished a five-year stint in prison for a 1999 crime spree. In that case he led police on a high-speed chase while driving a $50,000 motor home that had been stolen a few days earlier in Skagit County. Bogart got the motor home up to 95 mph, ignored stop signs, pulled into oncoming traffic and forced at least one vehicle into a ditch.

Officers put out spike strips to puncture the RV’s tires, but Bogart swerved at the last minute, nearly hitting a police officer. Bogart tried to ram a deputy’s patrol car, while yelling obscenities at the swarm of officers who tried to corral the seemingly unstoppable home on wheels.

During the pursuit, an accomplice in the motor home broke out a rear window and began throwing stuff at police cars.

Bogart eventually jumped from the moving RV and forced his way into a Granite Falls house. The homeowner knocked Bogart down and held him there until police arrived.

Bogart had been released about three weeks earlier from the prison in Monroe where he’d been serving time for a 1998 police pursuit. That chase started when Everett police attempted to pull Bogart over for running a stop sign in downtown Everett. Bogart raced through neighborhoods at 60 mph and ran more than 10 stop signs. He ended up driving the wrong way on I-5, nearly causing numerous head-on crashes. He also tried to ram a patrol car on an onramp, missing by inches. The chase continued, and, at one point, Bogart swerved at a dog on the road, killing it, court papers said.

Eventually Bogart lost control of the car and hit a telephone pole, shearing it off at the base. The pole fell partly on the road. Bogart’s car flipped twice.

He untangled himself from the wreckage and ran. Cops eventually caught up with him. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison.

He was sentenced in 1996 to three months in jail for his first chase with police. During that pursuit, Bogart raced through a construction area, sending a road crew scrambling to safety. He covered 18 miles in about 14 minutes. Once in handcuffs, Bogart apologized and told police he ran from them because he didn’t want to go back to jail and was trying to turn his life around.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.