ASOTIN, WA – Bond was set at $50,000 for a 50-year-old man who is believed to have eluded law enforcement officers throughout the Lewis-Clark Valley multiple times over the past year. Warren Ellis Sherrill has been charged with Attempting to Elude a Pursuing Public Servant and Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer. He has an extensive criminal history and is a registered sex offender.
According to a Probable Cause Affidavit, an identifiable 1993 Dodge D3500 one-ton dually pickup that is white, silver, and red had been eluding officers in Lewiston and Clarkston, and “the driver has fled at extremely high rates of speed with reckless and wanton disregard for public safety.”
“Although there have been multiple incidents, some documented and some not, the driver/offender had yet to be identified due to the driver’s immediate decisions(s) to take unwarranted flight from the mere presence and/or attempted stop by a police officer,” the affidavit says.
Late morning on May 20th, an Asotin County Sheriff’s deputy saw the pickup parked at a residence on Holly Avenue in Clarkston Heights. After parking for a few minutes, he reportedly heard the loud pickup start, and it drove past him, giving the deputy a clear view of the driver, whom he described as around 50 years of age, thin build, wearing a dark-colored T-shirt, sporting a goatee style, graying facial hair, and prescription glasses.
The driver was later identified as Sherrill, the court document adds.
As Sherrill proceeded on Holly Avenue, approaching Appleside Blvd., the deputy pulled in behind him.
“As I did so, I observed Warren run the stop sign and proceed north bound on Appleside Blvd. in exhibition of speed (or at least that of what a 93 1-ton dually can do). With the intention of addressing the previous violations, the stop sign violation, and identifying anyone associated with the vehicle, and/or identify previous offenders utilizing the vehicle to flee, I attempted a traffic violation stop,” the deputy says in the affidavit.
The deputy activated his lights and siren, but Sherrill allegedly continued accelerating and refused to stop as he traveled down Scenic Way out of the Heights.
“I note, during the entirety of Warren’s reckless flight in the 1-ton motor vehicle, there was a moderate level of traffic [affected], passed on the left by Warren, and nearly side swiped due to failing to [negotiate] curve characteristics in the roadway at high rates of speed,” the document says, adding that Sherrill was traveling approximately 60 miles per hour in a posted 35 mph zone.
The deputy says in the affidavit that the pursuit was then stopped because of the “current Washington State Legislative Restrictions of police vehicular pursuits.” He continued watching Sherrill as he cut through the parking lot of a business at the intersection of 15th Street and Fleshman Way and proceeded eastbound toward Lewiston at a speed of around 100 miles per hour, the document says. Sherrill eventually exited off of Bryden Canyon Road at the 8th Street exit in Lewiston.
After talking to two “uncooperative” subjects at the Holly Avenue home where the Dodge pickup had been parked, the deputy responded to the address of the vehicle’s former owner in the 900 block of 9th Street. An individual at that location reportedly told the deputy that he had seen another man driving the pickup a couple of months prior. The deputy then responded to that individual’s Asotin County residence.
After talking with the man, the affidavit says the deputy learned that he had allowed an “old jail house buddy who just got released from prison” use the pickup and it was “an obvious shock to him what Warren had been doing.”
The man asked the deputy if he could contact Sherrill and ask him to turn himself in. He reportedly hung up on him.
The deputy filed charges with the Asotin County Prosecutor’s Office, and an arrest warrant was issued for Sherrill. He was booked into the Asotin County Jail at around 10:48 a.m. yesterday.
Sherrill is a registered sex offender stemming from a 2016 conviction of Sexual Battery of a Minor Age 16/17 in Nez Perce County.
Photo courtesy of the Idaho State Police Sex Offender Registry
