By Ray King

An 18-year-old Pine Bluff man was arrested Monday after he was identified as a suspect in the theft of a vehicle.

Asa Shavers was taken into custody after he ran from police and a sheriff’s deputy who went to his residence looking for him, Detective Natalie McCool said in a probable cause affidavit presented in district court Wednesday.

Reading from the affidavit, Deputy Prosecutor Beth Carson said the owner of the vehicle was approached by three males who asked if there was any work they could do. The owner said she went to ask the owners of the property and when she returned saw that the door to her vehicle, a Lincoln was open, and her purse and keys were gone.

On Tuesday, McCool reported talking to the owner of the property who reported watching security video and seeing three males that were believed to be the same males that came to the house asking for work. The owner also reported that the victim’s vehicle, which had been parked at the residence was gone.

Carson said later Tuesday, police recovered the vehicle in an alley in the 200 block of Rutherford St., and a witness who lived next door on Alabama Street gave police security video showing a male later identified as Shavers standing around the car.

A second witness told police they had seen Shavers and his girlfriend in the vehicle at the gas station on Main Street and attempted to contact Shavers’ mother.

Shavers ran from police and one of the officers fired a Tazer at him which failed to connect but the officer was able to dry stun Shavers and make the arrest.

When Shavers was questioned, he told police he had been the lookout while his cousin and a friend took the car, and then gave it to him. He also said he broke the keys to the vehicle.

Pine Bluff District Judge John Kearney set a $5,000 bond for Shavers Wednesday after ruling prosecutors have probable cause to charge him with theft by receiving. The Public Defender’s Office was appointed to represent Shavers.