Last night, April 8, at 11:15, a bus driver called in a reckless driver on Beltline from Roosevelt. The vehicle, a 1988 Chevy Monte Carlo with specialty plates, crashed in the area of Beltline and Roosevelt and continued on Beltline until exiting northbound onto Coburg Road. Numerous witnesses said the vehicle was going near speeds of 100 miles-per-hour at times.
An officer on another stop at Coburg Road and Chad Drive saw the suspect vehicle drive past him and aired the direction of travel and vehicle description. An EPD sergeant located the suspect vehicle near the town of Coburg. Joseph Abram Perrott, age 35, of Eugene, crawled out of it.
The sergeant gave Perrott commands to sit, but he instead tried to approach the sergeant. He was then ordered to sit down on the bumper and complied. He had a large, fixed dagger in a sheath on his side that the sergeant had noticed. As he approached the car he removed the knife from the sheath and held it in his hand. Perrott was ordered to drop the knife, and instead he set it on the trunk of his car in his nearby proximity. Additional officers arrived and he was taken into custody. There was a long rifle in the vehicle and it was taken for safekeeping. ###