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MILLCREEK — Five felony charges have been filed against a man accused of ramming multiple Unified police vehicles while fleeing from officers.
Nicholas Miller Ververs, 23, is charged in 3rd District Court with three second-degree felony counts of assault against a peace officer; second-degree felony theft by receiving stolen property; failure to respond to an officer's signal to stop, a third-degree felony; and failure to stop at the command of a law officer, a class A misdemeanor.
Ververs is accused of leading police on a chase in the early morning hours March 10 after they found him inside a stolen truck in the parking lot of Smith's Marketplace, 845 E. 4500 South.
Officers used a speaker system to wake up Ververs and order him to show his hands and exit his truck, court documents say. Ververs then put the truck in reverse and rammed an officer's vehicle, with "the impact pushing it back about 5 feet," the charges allege.
Three officers "had to jump back to avoid being hit" by the officer's vehicle, according to charges filed Wednesday.
Ververs then fled the parking lot in the truck, at one point running a nearby red light, charges state. An officer used a PIT maneuver on the truck sometime after that, leading Ververs to get out of the truck and flee on foot, court documents say.
After running through at least one backyard, Ververs was found hiding inside a parked vehicle and arrested, charges state.
Ververs was being sought in an investigation into several burglaries in Holladay and Cottonwood Heights, Unified Police Lt. Brian Lohrke said last week. Court documents say the truck he was sleeping in was stolen from the parking lot of the Little America Hotel a few days before police located him.
Ververs, whose address is listed in court documents as unknown, had not been charged in connection with the alleged burglaries as of Thursday.
He was charged on Jan. 30 with felony drug possession. That case and three misdemeanor cases filed against him since last August are ongoing.
Court records show Ververs also has a prior criminal history in Utah that includes convictions for aggravated robbery, attempted possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, attempted theft by receiving stolen property, and three cases of retail theft.
