Hours after trying to evade officers with a gun drawn before his eventual arrest last week, Jason Steven Kearns lamented to his wife on a jail phone call that the encounter did not turn fatal.
"I don't know why I didn't shoot at them last night," Kearns told her during a recorded phone call from the Washington County jail.
The arrest capped an ongoing Washington County drug task force investigation into narcotics trafficking and illegal firearms possession by Kearns, 38, of Woodbury, and led to new federal criminal charges being filed on Tuesday.
According to an affidavit from a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Kearns had a history of fleeing law enforcement. While Washington County investigators attempted to search his home last month, he took off on a motorcycle, "carrying what appeared to be packages of methamphetamine in his jacket."
Law enforcement continued tracking Kearns and, on Nov. 14, spotted him in a truck outside a Woodbury restaurant. With the help of Woodbury police, the task force tried to pin Kearns' vehicle in so he would not escape.
With his wife in the passenger seat, Kearns rammed the police vehicle in front of him head-on and nearly struck a van behind him when reversing. The truck became disabled as its rear passenger side wheel became damaged, and Kearns fled on foot to a nearby parking lot.
According to the charges, Kearns wielded a semiautomatic pistol while officers chased him on foot. After multiple commands to drop his firearm, Kearns complied and surrendered.
Investigators retrieved a Smith & Wesson model SD9 VE 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol loaded with a round chambered and 11 rounds in the magazine. They also found a large knife on Kearns.
In Kearns' vehicle they also found crystal substances that field-tested positive for methamphetamine, liquid methamphetamine and empty hypodermic needles.
Kearns' criminal history, dating to 2009, includes two burglary, two armed robbery and assault convictions. An attorney was not listed for Kearns on Tuesday.
According to the agent's affidavit, a recorded jail call between Kearns and his wife a day after the arrest captured Kearns saying, "or I'll take them out one by one," in response to his wife suggesting that she would sue law enforcement for withholding her husband's medication.
Kearns twice said he should have shot at them, using an expletive, according to the agent.
