Police: Reston men charged after hitting trooper vehicles during chases on Beltway

Two Reston men are facing multiple charges — including attempted murder in one case — after allegedly getting involved in police pursuits on the Capital Beltway last Thursday (March 7).

The first chase began around 9:54 p.m. when a Virginia State Police trooper moved to stop a Jeep Cherokee SRT for reckless driving on I-495 near S. Van Dorn Street in Rose Hill, according to the VSP.

“The Cherokee refused to stop for the trooper and a pursuit was initiated,” state police said. “During the course of the pursuit, the driver of the Jeep threw a firearm out the window. The firearm struck the ground and then the trooper’s vehicle.”

After the chase got off the Beltway, the driver hit the trooper’s vehicle with the Jeep at the Braddock Road and Twinbrook Road intersection in the Kings Park West area, the VSP said. The Jeep ultimately came to a stop on Twinbrook Road.

The driver — identified by police as Jevon T. Mark, 23, of Reston — was taken into custody and charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, eluding police, throwing missiles, reckless driving and one felony count of hit and run.

Police also detained and released two passengers in the vehicle, and the gun reportedly thrown out of the Jeep was found.

“The incident remains under investigation,” the VSP said.

The second high-speed chase of the night came less than an hour later. At 10:45 p.m., the VSP were alerted by a Maryland law enforcement agency to a stolen 2015 Chevrolet traveling across the American Legion Bridge into Virginia.

When a state trooper attempted to initiate a traffic stop on I-495 near Braddock Road, the driver refused and sped away at a high rate of speed, the VSP said. State police attempted to bring the vehicle to a stop near the Glebe Road exit in Arlington using a “pursuit intervention technique.”

Though fuzzy, a traffic camera video captured by public safety watcher Dave Statter shows the vehicle careening into a ditch by the exit ramp.

According to the VSP, the driver crawled into the trunk of the vehicle to try and hide from the troopers, who took him into custody without incident.

During the pursuit, the car rammed into one of the trooper’s cars. The trooper suffered minor injuries.

Abiselome Belachew, a 21-year-old Reston resident, has been charged with attempted capital murder of a law enforcement officer, one felony count of hit-and-run for hitting the trooper’s vehicle, one felony count of eluding police, auto theft and driving on a suspended license.