Police Chase With RV Ends With Fire
ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM) - An early morning chase involving an RV ended with a massive fire along Interstate-30 in Arlington. The incident started at about 2:30 a.m. as authorities began pursuing a man who was believed to have shot his wife during an argument.
Officials said that Candie Price went to her husband Tony Kelly's workplace at Freedom Storage in Dallas, and that is where the fight began.
It was a short time later that Price texted 911 from the RV, saying that she had been shot and providing details of the situation including a description of the vehicle. Officers were dispatched to locate the RV and the woman.
Kelly fled from police in the RV with Price and two children inside. Price was able to get out of the vehicle early in the pursuit when she jumped from the moving vehicle along the highway in Hunt County. According to Sheriff Randy Meeks, Price had been shot two or three times. She is now being treated at Baylor Medical Center at Dallas.
"She told our deputy he was suicidal and homicidal, so our deputies had to use extreme caution," Meeks said.
But the kids, two young boys, were inside of the RV for much of this incident.
Authorities were able to spike the RV's tires in Rowlett. That had the pursuit moving very slowly through several cities. Traffic cameras showed the RV being followed by police vehicles from at least eight agencies on empty highways, until it finally came to a stop in the westbound lanes of Interstate-30 near Fielder Road in Arlington.
That is where the RV burst into flames. It is believed that, once the spiked rubber tires wore down to just the rims, sparks that flew up from the metal hitting the highway were enough to ignite the vehicle with the suspect and his kids still inside. Flames shot high into the air, but firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze.
Just before the fire grew, Kelly appeared to let the children out of the RV through a door. As officers were assisting those kids, authorities heard a single gunshot. No officers fired shots during this entire incident.
Video showed the two children being safely placed into the back of an ambulance. They were not injured, but were transported to Arlington Memorial Hospital as a precaution. However, officials said that the suspect never exited the vehicle. Firefighters could later be seen covering the RV driver's remains at the scene.
Authorities confirmed that Kelly is dead, but it is not clear if he shot himself or died in the fire.
Meanwhile, the westbound side of Interstate-30 was completely shut down. Drivers caught in the nasty backup were stuck for hours while crews cleaned up the mess. Many of those drivers had been behind the police pursuit as it was happening, before the fire even started.
"Traffic was steadily going like 20-25 mph, but every once in a while it would stop," said witness Thomas Coggeshall. "You see police lights, but you couldn't see what was going on. By the time I got up around here, you could see the fire. It was blazing pretty good. It was probably 10-foot in the air."
The eastbound lanes were also shut down for a time, but all lanes in both directions have since been opened back up to regular traffic.