A St. Croix woman has been jailed and remanded after a tumultuous Saturday morning in Seven Hills that saw her pursue police cruisers, ignore direct orders to leave, and crash her pickup truck into roadside vegetation.
Susan Sharon DeJesus faced major misdemeanor charges and made her first court appearance on Monday before Superior Court Magistrate Judge Yolan C. Brow Ross for an Advice of Rights hearing. She was charged under Title 14 V.I.C. § 883 with disobeying lawful police orders. Bail was set at $1,000.
The incident began shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, when Virgin Islands Police responded to a domestic disturbance report at Seven Hills. Officer Adisha Rogers filed the Probable Cause Fact Sheet detailing what unfolded.
When officers arrived, they found DeJesus sitting in a gray pickup truck with license plate CIS-547, parked on the roadway shoulder. As officers moved through the area to speak with the person who had called 911, Marthia Herelle, DeJesus repeatedly drove past the marked police unit. She then positioned her truck directly behind the officers' stopped cruiser.
DeJesus told officers she had come to see Herelle, whom she identified as her mother-in-law, to pass along a message to "look up at the sky." Police warned her that Herelle had reported harassment and explicitly instructed her to leave immediately and drive straight home.
Within minutes, DeJesus accelerated back through the neighbourhood, driving directly past the police unit toward Herelle's house. Officers pursuing her discovered her gray pickup wedged deep into bushes off the shoulder. DeJesus jumped out and tried to run back to the disabled vehicle.
When Officer Rogers ordered her to stop and place her hands on the cruiser, DeJesus refused and struggled with patrol officers before being tackled, subdued, and handcuffed. After receiving her Miranda rights, she told officers she had ignored their commands because she "forgot something."
At the residence, Herelle recounted to investigators that DeJesus had harassed the property earlier that morning by blaring her vehicle horn repeatedly while shouting that she "had something for her" and had a message for Herelle's son, Alva Gustave. Herelle said DeJesus had tried to force her to drop her phone as she attempted to call 911.
Herelle told police that DeJesus had inflicted lasting distress on her family. She noted that DeJesus had been arrested just two months prior and had only recently been released from custody following an earlier incident involving her son.
DeJesus was booked at police administrative headquarters and transported to Golden Grove to await her Monday court appearance.
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