(UPDATE) Area law enforcement conducted an overnight operation which resulted in several arrests.

According to Captain Jeff Wilson with the St. Joseph Police Department, the goal of the joint operation was to locate and stop vehicles fleeing from officers.

Wilson said area law enforcement agencies involved included the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Buchanan County Drug Strike Force with outlying support from Elwood, Doniphan County and Andrew County Sheriff Departments.

“It was very well-thought out, very well-planned. It went from the late evening hours into the early morning hours and we would just say that the operation was a success,” Wilson said. “There were vehicles that did flee from officers, these vehicles were tracked by air assets and there were arrests made as a result of this operation.”

Wilson said there were five arrests made as a result of suspects fleeing from officers. Wilson said vehicles flee from officers during normal or investigative traffic stops and some that flee from officers may do so because a suspect is driving a stolen vehicle.  

“Our officers made us very aware of the fact that a lot of vehicles are fleeing from them. This presents a danger not only to the citizens, as far as the driving of these suspects when they flee in their vehicles, but also it speaks to the fact that they are normally involved in some sort of criminal behavior that we’re trying to stop them for anyway,” Wilson said. “(We orchestrated) an operation with this much planning and safety involved in it, to hopefully have somewhat of an affect on these suspects choosing to flee from us, that’s kind of what the premise is behind this. Much like doing a special operation for narcotics or anything along those lines, we saw a problem and we implemented some planning to address that problem.”

====

(7:56 a.m. Friday) The St. Joseph Police Department made several arrests overnight due to a joint operation.

According to Sgt. Wayne Byrom with the police department, the operation between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. focused on stolen vehicles and vehicles fleeing from officers.

Around 9:30 Thursday night, police were following a car on 16th Street when the vehicle attempted to get away. The driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into another vehicle parked outside a home. Two people in the vehicle were taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

More information on the results of the joint operation will be released later Friday.