High Springs Man Takes Officers on High-Speed Chase

HIGH SPRINGS – A 62-year-old High Springs man was arrested at approximately 4:56 p.m., Wednesday, July 24, 2024, after fleeing from High Springs Police Officers at a high rate of speed.

The first police officer responded to a call for a well-being check on a man who was slumped over inside a pickup truck. The officer tried to make contact with the driver, later identified as Howard Carl McLees, but instead of responding, McLees reportedly started the truck.

The officer reportedly told him multiple times that he could not leave, but McLees allegedly accelerated away at a high rate of speed and turned west from Southeast Douglass Street onto Northwest 180^th Avenue, a dead-end road.

The officer followed McLees in his patrol car. When McLees realized it was a dead-end street, he allegedly turned his truck around and accelerated at high speed toward the officer’s patrol vehicle and a second patrol vehicle that had arrived.

The first officer activated his emergency lights to signal McLees to stop, but McLees allegedly drove toward the patrol vehicles, forcing one of the officers to get out of his way to avoid a collision. McLees allegedly ran the stop sign, turned north on Douglass Street and encountered a third patrol vehicle.

The third officer reportedly had to get out of McLees’ path to avoid a collision. All three patrol vehicles pursued McLees’ truck, with lights and sirens activated.

McLees allegedly ran multiple stop signs while driving west on Northwest 184^th Road and crossed High Springs Main Street at a time of day when there is heavy traffic. His truck reportedly broke down as he was turning north on Northwest 237^th Street, and the officers ordered him out of the truck.

McLees allegedly refused to get out of the truck and had to be forcefully removed.

McLees has been charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, fleeing or attempting to elude a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer without violence.

McLees has 16 felony convictions, three of which were violent, and nine misdemeanor convictions, one of which was violent, and has served three state prison sentences, with his most recent release in 2020.

In March, Judge James Colaw sentenced him to five years in prison for stealing $500 in steaks from Hitchcock’s Markets, with the condition that the sentence would be suspended if he successfully completed five years of probation. An affidavit of violation of probation was filed in June after McLees reportedly failed a urine test and was found to have cocaine in his system.

Judge Kristine Van Vorst did not set bail initially because McLees was hospitalized at that time. However, bail was later set at $150,000.

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