Driver swings knife at deputies after chase reaching 115 mph, police say

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Police say a 37-year-old Virginia man on Sunday led them on a high-speed chase on Interstate 81 in Berkeley County and swung a knife at them in a parking lot when the chase ended near the West Virginia and Virginia line.

James Matthew Davenport of Kettle Mountain Drive, Centerville, was charged with obstructing an officer and fleeing from an officer, according to Berkeley County Magistrate Court records.

Davenport was not being held in the Eastern Regional Jail on Wednesday, and Sheriff Nathan Harmon did not know if he had been released on bond.

Deputy D.J. Dorsey said in a criminal complaint filed in magistrate court that he received a call Sunday about a driver recklessly traveling south on Interstate 81 in the area of Spring Mills. He did not state what time he was notified.

The car was described as a silver Mazda 3 with a Virginia registration.

Dorsey said he spotted the car traveling at a high rate of speed and passing multiple vehicles. At one point, the car was involved in a hit-and-run crash with another vehicle in which three juveniles, a pregnant female and an adult male were riding, Harmon said.

Harmon said Wednesday he did not have further details about whether the people in that vehicle were hurt in the collision.

After Dorsey activated his emergency lights and siren, the Mazda continued traveling south on I-81, he said. The car passed vehicles on the right and left shoulders of the interstate as Dorsey tried to stop it going speeds up to 115 mph.

The pursuit went into Virginia, and at one point the Mazda exited the interstate and began traveling north on U.S. 11, continuing to travel at a high rate of speed and passing vehicles.

The Mazda stopped in a parking lot just north of the Virginia and West Virginia line along U.S. 11. The driver stepped out with a knife in his right hand, Dorsey said.

The driver pointed the knife in the direction of Dorsey and another deputy and swung it at them, Dorsey said. At gunpoint, the driver was ordered to drop the knife, which he threw into woods behind him, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

He then surrendered to the deputies.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Interstate 81 pursuit reaches 115 mph, driver pulls knife on deputies