A man with a long list of criminal charges in other counties appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court last Monday and pled guilty to the charges filed against him locally and was given a five-year prison sentence.
Thirty-one-year-old Michael Edward Toombs, Jr., and 42-year-old Victoria Noel Toombs were arrested after they tried to outrun a Mountain Home police officer.
Electronic court records do not show that charges were brought against Victoria Toombs.
At the time of the arrest, Michael Toombs listed an address along Whispering Pines Road in the small Perry County town of Bigelow.
The Mountain Home officer initially pulled a black four door sedan over about 11 p.m. on August 14 last year for having an expired temporary registration.
According to the probable cause affidavit, both Michael and Victoria Toombs began getting out of the vehicle as the officer approached. He told them to stay inside.
They got back in, shut the doors and then sped off with tires spinning. During the chase, the vehicle was reported to have been driven in a reckless manner, disregarding stop signs and almost running into another MHPD patrol car that had joined the chase. The officer is reported to have avoided a collision by driving off the roadway.
Eventually, the speeding vehicle turned into the driveway at a residence along Circle Drive and both occupants bailed out.
Victoria Toombs was stopped and taken into custody quickly. It took longer to find and arrest Michael Toombs. An Mountain Home officer and deputies from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office located him lying face down in a heavily wooded area and he was handcuffed without further incident.
Most of Michael Toomb’s previous criminal cases stemmed from incidents in Garland County. According to court records, he has been charged with stealing or possessing stolen vehicles, including a $50,000 U-Haul truck, a trailer from a Hot Springs flooring company, an Izuzu Trooper and a jeep.
He is said to have tried to evade police when they attempted to stop him while he was in the U-Haul truck. During the chase, Michael Toombs is reported to have driven the truck in a reckless manner in a heavily traveled urban area.
According to the probable cause affidavit in the UHAUL Haul case, Michael Toombs was going up to 70 miles-per-hour down Central Avenue, the main street in Hot Springs.
He allegedly did not obey several traffic signs and traffic lights and drove in the oncoming lanes at times.
He pulled into the parking area of a hospital’s emergency room where pedestrians were endangered, according to reports on the incident.
Hot Springs police reported terminating the chase because of the danger of continuing in what is a busy part of the city. The arrest and recovery of the truck came later.
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