Body Camera Video Shows Owasso Police Attempting To Talk To Driver Before High-Speed Pursuit

News On 6 is learning new details about a high-speed pursuit involving Owasso police over the weekend that ended in Tulsa.

Officers say it started when they asked a man repeatedly to leave a gas station, but he refused and took off.

Owasso police say they didn’t plan to arrest Barton Stovall; they just wanted to get him to leave private property. But after he refused several commands, they say Stovall escalated the situation into a high-speed pursuit.

Officers say they were called out twice to a gas station near 106th Street North and Highway 169 early Saturday morning because Barton Stovall was camped out in his truck at a gas pump for hours. Body camera video shows officers trying to talk to Stovall, but he refused to give them his name and driver’s license.

Police put stop sticks underneath Stovall’s truck and shot pepper balls into the vehicle to get him to come out, but instead, he took off down Highway 169, reaching speeds of 90 miles per hour.

Officers deployed additional stop sticks at 66th Street North to flatten all of Stovall’s tires, but he kept going. The pursuit continued down I-44, where an OHP trooper performed a maneuver to stop Stovall near the Yale exit.

Police used a K-9 officer and a Taser to get Stovall into custody but say this whole thing could have been avoided.

"In this case, when the store employees and the officers were acting on their behalf to make the guy leave, all he had to do was comply. The officers weren’t interested in taking him to jail at that point; they just wanted him to leave the property, and he failed to do so," said Owasso Police Lt. Nick Boatman.

Police say Stovall is from Oklahoma City. Records show he has convictions for several crimes in Oklahoma County, including DUI, burglary, and drug offenses.

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