Test drive ends with trip to jail | Crime

When you take a vehicle out for a test drive, you’re supposed to return it to the dealer.

But, police say a Jonesboro man just kept driving.

Friday afternoon Officer Keith Baggett was dispatched to Central GMC-Buick, 29-7 E. Parker Rd. in Jonesboro.

According to Sales Manager Devin Voyles, 50-year-old David Henry Jenkins had taken a red 2009 GMC Sierra crew-cab pickup truck out for a test drive the previous day and had not returned it.

While speaking to Voyles, General Manager Zach Gartman called and said he was behind the truck, driving south on Highway 1 near the Poinsett County line. 

According to the report, Jenkins pulled in at the liquor store and went through the drive-thru.  The truck then headed north on the highway toward Jonesboro.

A Poinsett County sheriff’s deputy stopped the truck just north of the county line.

Jenkins was in police custody when Officer Jo Carol Carter arrived on the scene.  According to her report, he was “re-handcuffed, double-locked, searched and placed” in her patrol unit.

At the time of his arrest, Carter said Jenkins was “very angry” and said he was “going to pay for the truck.”

Carter then spoke with Voyles and Gartman who had arrived at the scene.  They reportedly said they did not want to pursue charges against Jenkins, but they did want him criminally banned from all Central Dealership properties.

When Carter returned to her patrol unit she said she “noticed a strong odor of cigarette smoke in my car.  I observed Jenkins seated in the backseat of my patrol unit with his hands cuffed behind his back and a lit cigarette in his hand, smoking it.”

Carter said she immediately removed the cigarette.

Officer Carter transported Jenkins to the Craighead County Detention Center (CCDC).  Once there, she said Jenkins became “aggressive” and said “I’d advise you don’t grab me” when she tried to help him out of her patrol car.

She escorted Jenkins to a bench in the sally port search room and told him to sit down.  Instead, she said Jenkins “lightly pushed himself against the wall, down to the bench, then to a seated position on the floor with his head on the bench and pretended to be unconscious.”

Two jailers and an officer reportedly witnessed the incident.  When they picked Jenkins up he reportedly claimed Carter had “slammed” him into the wall and knocked him out.  The jailers called for medical staff to come and assess Jenkins.  According to Carter’s initial report, after Jenkins began talking about the case and “acting as if nothing had happened,” they cancelled the call for medical assistance.

Officer Carter told the jailers about Jenkins smoking in her patrol unit.  The jailers said they did not find any cigarettes on his person, just a lighter.  One of the officers then took Jenkins into a search room.  He returned a short while later with a pack of cigarettes he had reportedly found concealed in Jenkins’ genital area.

Jenkins was left at the CCDC on a charge of theft of a vehicle of $25,000 pending a probable cause hearing.