By Trent Moore and Patrick McCreless

STAFF WRITERS

ARKADELPHIA — An armed man who local authorities thought was hiding in an Arkadelphia trailer for seven hours Saturday apparently escaped beforehand in a stolen vehicle and is still at large.

Cullman County Sheriff Tyler Roden said after agents cleared the trailer and discovered the suspect — Christopher Kahn Laye, 28, of Sumiton — was not there, a next-door neighbor reported his vehicle had been stolen.

“It appears after he (Laye) ran into the trailer, he evidently came out and stole the car,” Roden said. “To my knowledge no other agencies have come in contact with him as of yet.”

The vehicle is described as a 2009 blue Ford Fusion. Laye is described as a white male with short hair, approximately 6 feet tall and weighing between 180 and 200 pounds. Authorities suspect he is armed with an AR-15 rifle and consider him extremely dangerous.

Though Laye is still on the loose, Roden said it is unlikely he is still in the Cullman County area.

“There was really no rhyme or reason as to why he wound up where he did,” he said. “It’s very doubtful he is in our area. It was a coincidence he was in our area to start with.”

More than 50 law enforcement officers from several agencies surrounded the trailer, located on Highway 91, after an Alabama State Trooper in a helicopter witnessed Laye run inside around 11 a.m. Saturday.

Laye escaped custody from Sumiton police Friday night after he was arrested during a meth lab bust. Roden said Laye stole a police car to make his getaway, taking the officer’s firearm with him. At some point, Laye stole another vehicle, which a Cullman County Sheriff’s deputy stopped Saturday morning.

Laye fled the scene and drove the vehicle to the trailer, which was unoccupied at the time.

After several hours of waiting and a few unsuccessful attempts at communication, agents launched tear gas into the trailer and sent in a robot to check out the scene around 5:30 p.m. A team of agents quickly followed, at which point they confirmed Laye was not at the scene.

Roden said approximately 20 Cullman County Sheriff’s Office deputies were involved in the standoff. Exactly how much the standoff cost the sheriff’s office financially is not yet known.

“At the moment, we have no idea how much it cost us,” he said. “We will [seek restitution], because we do feel (Laye) is responsible for that incident.”

Looking back on how his department responded to the event, Roden said he has no regrets about the approach and tactics that were taken.

“We had no reason not to treat the situation as if the man was in there,” he said. “If we had dismissed eye witness statements and left, and the man had still been there and hurt someone, that’s not something I would want to face. The way we handled it was the appropriate way.”

In the coming week, Roden said his department would review the standoff with the various other agencies involved and see what can be learned from the experience.

“We plan to sit down and talk about the details,” he said. “There will always be room for improvement.”

Anyone with information about Laye’s possible whereabouts can contact the Cullman County Sheriff’s Office at 734-0342.

‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.