WATONGA – No one was seriously injured Monday after an Ellis County man led deputies on a chase through Blaine County and flipped his vehicle in Geary with a woman and child on board.
Jason Looney was booked into the Blaine County Jail on suspicion of reckless driving, driving under the influence, kidnapping, and other counts.
Blaine County officials were tipped off about the driver by a Dewey County deputy, according to Blaine County Undersheriff Danny Aytes. Aytes clocked Looney driving 120 mph west of Watonga, he said, and followed him into town.
Aytes didn’t turn his lights on until Looney turned south at the Watonga four-way stop. Looney acted as though he was going to pull over into the NAPA parking lot, Aytes said. “He turned towards NAPA and then came back on the road,” he said. Looney did the same thing at the Lucky Star Casino, feinting toward the lot before taking off down the highway.
“That’s when I initiated dispatch that we were in pursuit,” Aytes said.
At some point, a woman in the vehicle with Looney called authorities and told them there was a child in the SUV. “You could hear in the audio that she was begging for him to stop and let them two out,” Aytes said.
Looney drove through a construction zone between Watonga and Geary, Aytes said, driving over traffic cones with workers on site. As he approached Geary, Aytes said he was about to call off the pursuit because of the child in the vehicle. But that’s when Looney lost control.
“I observed him go across the double-yellow lines into Geary,” Aytes said. “He went on the oncoming traffic, to go around them, and caught the loose gravel. That’s when he went in the ditch, hit the curb line and rolled a couple times.”
Miraculously, no one was seriously injured in the wreck, and the child was unharmed.
Aytes said Looney may have run from authorities because he has outstanding warrants in four different counties, and his license is suspended.
He’s just glad no one got hurt. “When there’s a child involved,” Aytes said, “it’s really touchy.”
Woodward had asked both parties’ attorneys – Matthew Oppel for Kays, and Billy Bock for the woman – whether they could agree on a continuation of the order. But Oppel maintained that Kays was not interested in continuing the order and would rather see it dismissed outright.
Woodward said he couldn’t continue the order for more than six months without both lawyers’ agreement, and therefore ruled against the permanent order.
Kays was dismissed from the Watonga police on June 14, 2021, the same day the protective order was filed.
Kays is scheduled back in Watonga on May 27 for a preliminary hearing about the felony burglary and misdemeanor assault charges against him. Those charges stem from a rough arrest Kays conducted in 2019 while he was chief of police, and were filed in July 2021.
Kays is also facing federal gun charges and is set for a jury trail in June. His attorney in that case, David Autry, has filed multiple pending motions seeking to have those counts dismissed.
Prosecutors allege that Kays purchased and possessed firearms he was not supposed to have while under a protective order and while his Blaine County case was pending.