Alleged Shoplifter Arrested After Wild Police Chase In Cartersville

CARTERSVILLE, GA -- A Bartow County woman is in jail on several charges in connection to shoplifting from a local grocery store and striking a sheriff's deputy with her vehicle while trying to flee the area.

Deputies with the Bartow County Sheriff's Office responded to a shoplifting call around 1:23 p.m. Tuesday to the Ingles Market at 879 Joe Frank Harris Parkway. They arrived to find the suspect, a woman, getting into the driver's seat of a Honda Accord.

The driver, ignoring the deputies who were trying to speak with her, got into the car and "backed up quickly, striking one deputy in the leg and missing the other," sheriff's office spokesperson Sgt. Jonathan Rogers said. The woman drove forward and struck two cars while trying to escape, one of which was occupied by a toddler as a shopper was loading groceries into the car.

The woman peeled out of the parking lot, drove the wrong way on Felton Road and nearly collided head-on with another assisting deputy, Rogers said. She struck another vehicle and continued until she reached the Crown Inn at 1214 N. Tennessee Street.

Witnesses informed deputies which room the woman ran into after ditching the car and the suspect, identified as Olivia Ann Hayes, 25, was taken into custody with the help of the Cartersville Police Department and Georgia State Patrol.

Hayes is charged with three counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, two counts of aggravated assault, three counts of hit and run, fleeing and attempting to elude police, probation violation, shoplifting, driving while unlicensed and making an illegal left turn.

Rogers said Hayes could face other charges stemming from the other jurisdictions involved. The sheriff's deputy who was hit by the car is OK with "only a complaint of injury," he added.

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