A Summerville man surrendered at gunpoint after leading the Union County Sheriff’s Office on a foot chase from River City Bank to the Blairsville Post Office last week.
Charles Jason Jackson, 49, entered River City Bank around 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 10, where he attempted to cash a fraudulent check, according to Sheriff Shawn Dyer.
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The bank staff turned Jackson away and alerted E-911 Dispatch, Dyer said, noting that employees there were not personally familiar with Jackson but were on alert regarding similar fraudulent activity at other bank branches in North Georgia.
As it happened, Sheriff Dyer and his Chief Deputy Josh Berry were in the immediate vicinity and responded in time to see a man matching the dispatched description walking east on the sidewalk of Georgia 515, still in front of the bank.
Dyer parked at the bank, quickly verified the clothing description with 911 Dispatch – it was a match – and he got out of his patrol car and asked the man to “come here.”
Instead of complying, the man took off running, with Sheriff Dyer and Chief Berry in hot pursuit as deputies as well as officers with the Blairsville Police Department converged on the area.
“I thought he was going to go inside the CVS store, but luckily, he went around the store,” Dyer said.
The foot chase continued through the parking lot of Mr. Clean Car Wash, and though Dyer had been gaining on Jackson, he tripped, causing him to lose ground.
Jackson continued running, entering the parking lot of H&R Block to cut around the south side of the building. About that time, one of Dyer’s deputies radioed that he was coming into Young Harris Street from GA 515, potentially putting him in position to cut Jackson off.
Dyer and Berry went around the other side of the strip mall hoping to catch Jackson if he went back toward 515, all the while the sheriff coordinated via radio with two other deputies who were staking out the Blairsville Post Office, in the direction the chase was headed.
Instead of making his way to 515, Jackson ran around the front of the Post Office, and he tried to hide in one of the big bushes on the east side of the building, Dyer said.
The deputies there quickly spotted him, drew their sidearms and ordered him to come out from hiding, and Jackson complied – finally – and was placed under arrest without further incident.
He was not armed, but deputies did confiscate from him a pipe that tested positive for methamphetamine, Dyer said.
Jackson is facing two felony counts of third-degree forgery, $1,500 or more; felony possession of drug-related objects; and misdemeanor obstruction of an officer.
Blairsville Police Chief Michael “Bear” Baxter was extremely grateful for the efforts of the Sheriff’s Office last week, and he said the two local agencies were in contact with outside law enforcement “on similar acts that we feel like have been committed by this individual.”
“A good day for Union County law enforcement,” Chief Baxter said of the Feb. 10 teamwork between the agencies.
It was unknown at press time how the out-of-town man came to be in Union County. He has no known ties to the area and apparently walked to the bank property.
Law enforcement has been unable to find a vehicle belonging to him parked anywhere in the county, leading to the belief that he likely had help from someone else.
“These people typically don’t park in a bank parking lot,” Dyer said. “They’ll park somewhere else and walk, that way everybody doesn’t get caught. So, we have no idea what he was in; we did look, but we never did find a vehicle.
“(An accomplice was) probably sitting across the road somewhere watching in case we showed up – that’s the way it usually goes. And they probably drove off, mixed in with regular traffic, and we’d have never known it because we were busy chasing him.”
Added Dyer, “I think he decided to try to come to a small town and commit a crime and not get caught. He came to the wrong town.”
Jackson has been charged only and is presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. He remained in jail at press time with a $24,000 bond.
“I just want the citizens to know that we’re an agency that’s quick to respond and take care of issues,” Dyer said. “And I feel like the citizens are safe in Union County with the group of guys that we’ve got working here – they don’t take their job lightly.”
Dyer said the Sheriff’s Office has been particularly busy lately, booking in more than two dozen people over a recent eight-day span. Many of these arrests have been due to drugs, undoubtedly assisted by the third investigator Dyer assigned to the Narcotics Division at the end of last year.
“Our guys are just working hard, and I’m really proud of them getting out here and getting these drugs off the street,” Sheriff Dyer said.
