Cullman Co., AL - Suspect Arrested In  Meth Lab Bust - Steals Police Car - Stole Rifle - Escapes

The Birmingham News April 26th, 2009

Authorities today are on the lookout for a 28-year-old Sumiton man on the run who got a head start after several law enforcement agencies spent about eight hours Saturday in a standoff at a mobile home that turned out to be empty.

The chase began Saturday morning, when Christopher Laye took off in a police car after Sumiton police arrested him during a meth lab bust, Cullman County Sheriff Tyler Roden said.

Laye, posing as an officer, ditched the police car and got a ride from a Sumiton man he approached at his home. An Alabama State Trooper helicopter spotted the two men in a Jeep and they were pulled over, Roden said. While the driver was being taken into custody, Laye crawled over the console and drove off.


Laye was followed down Country Road 8 for three or four miles and then to a mobile home on Highway 91 in Arkadelphia, Roden said. Authorities in the helicopter saw him enter the home with a rifle they believe he took from the police car. They never saw him leave.

After hours of trying to communicate with Laye, authorities flooded the trailer with tear gas and then entered to find it empty.

"We really had no other choice rather than to operate under the assumption that he was in that trailer because nobody saw him leave after he entered," Roden said.
"There's no telling where he could've gone during that time."

It is now believed that Laye left in a neighbor's blue 2009 Ford Fusion soon after he entered the mobile home.

Sumiton Police said Laye is a 6'1 white male who weighs about 130 pounds.
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