A Santa Maria man was apprehended by police on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after he evaded authorities during a high-speed vehicular pursuit that wound through the Santa Maria area and southern San Luis Obispo County.
Nicholas McCloud, 31, of Guadalupe was taken into custody after officials located him at a Santa Maria hotel, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
McCloud eluded authorities after a high-speed pursuit on Aug. 10.
The chase began in the city of Santa Maria shortly before 3 p.m., when deputies with the sheriff’s Compliance Response Team spotted McCloud, who was on probation for resisting an officer with force or violence, in the passenger seat of a white 1994 Lincoln Continental on the 100 block of East Donovan Road in Santa Maria.
A traffic stop was attempted, but the female driver — identified as Felicia Rae Hendricks, 23, of Nipomo — sped away.
After traveling through Santa Maria, the driver headed north on Highway 101 into San Luis Obispo County, with speeds topping 100 mph and passing vehicles on the right shoulder at least once.
The pursuing CRT officer lost sight of the vehicle after it exited the highway into Arroyo Grande, but the fleeing suspects were located with help from personnel of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol. The chase resumed and the vehicle headed back towards Santa Maria, before disappearing again.
Authorities set up a perimeter and Hendricks was taken into custody at gunpoint in the northwestern neighborhoods of Santa Maria, Huddle said.
McCloud remained at large that evening and for nearly two weeks afterward. CRT launched an extensive investigation to determine his whereabouts, sheriff’s spokesperson Kelly Hoover said.
On Wednesday, CRT officers located McCloud at a hotel on the 200 block of Nicholson Avenue in Santa Maria. The deputies made contact with McCloud, who struggled with the arresting officers before being taken into custody, Hoover said.
Upon McCloud’s arrest, CRT officers took two more into custody — Katrina Mahia, 32, and Casandra Limon, 21, both of Santa Maria.
Limon was arrested for violating the terms and conditions of her active parole. Mahia was arrested for being an alleged accessory to a felon.
McCloud, a known gang-affiliate, was arrested last year after he cut off his electronic monitoring device per terms of his probation. He was also arrested in 2014 when he fled from officers pursuing him in a narcotics investigation — an incident that led to a temporary lock-down of an Orcutt Elementary School.
— Noozhawk intern Shomik Mukherjee can be reached at smukherjee@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.