Heights man locked up after engaging in pursuit, standoff with Virginia police
By Kaylee Lindenmuth | [email protected]
ATKINS, Va. – A Shenandoah Heights man wanted on felony flight and elusion charges here is locked up on the same charges in southwestern Virginia after law enforcement there say he led them on a pursuit and engaged in a standoff early Sunday morning.
The pursuit began just after midnight in a construction zone along I-81 in Atkins, Smyth County, where a sheriff’s deputy, conducting speed enforcement, attempted to stop a Ford pickup.
The Ford took off, exited the interstate in Marion, Virginia, and the pursuit ended on Tranquility Lane in Atkins in a field.
The driver, Francis Edward Ney III, 35, of the 200 block of Ohio Avenue, made multiple threats to sheriffs deputies with a firearm and was taken into custody by a Smyth County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team and a Virginia State Police SWAT team.
Ney has an active warrant from the Schuylkill County District Attorney’s Office and an open case from September 2019, filed Nov. 15, in which State Police at Frackville charged Ney with felony receiving stolen property, flight to avoid apprehension, and fleeing and eluding for an incident in Gilberton borough. In the same case, he faced DUI, drug possession charges, and a variety of traffic offenses.
Now, Ney faces charges in Virginia of felony eluding, obstruction of justice, use of a smoke screen device, grand larceny, possession of burglary tools, speeding, reckless driving, improper vehicle registration, and driving without a license.
Ney is being held in a prison in Abingdon, Virginia. It is not known if or when he may be extradited to Schuylkill County for charges faced here.
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