Man Arrested For Stealing Spiro Police Car, Driving Wrong Way On I-40

Oklahoma law enforcement officers arrested a Spiro man after he reportedly stole a Spiro police car early Thursday.

Sheriff's deputies told KFSM, the CBS affiliate in Fort Smith, Arkansas, that Barry Persall took the car and went for a ride on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and Interstate 540 in Arkansas before he was pulled over and arrested back in Oklahoma.

An Arkansas State Police trooper attempted to stop the police car after he saw it driving west in the eastbound lanes of I-40 at about 2:30 a.m.  The car continued on and was eventually stopped near the Muldrow exit on the interstate highway, police said. 

Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart told KFSM that Persall told them he had gone to the Spiro Police Department just after midnight, and when he found no one there, he got into a police car parked nearby and turned on the car's flashing lights and drove off.

Deputies arrested Persall and booked him into the LeFlore County jail on an auto theft complaint.