Teens hit 100 mph in stolen Dodges, then drove right back into a police trap

An Auburn, Massachusetts, police officer clocked two Dodge Challengers doing 60 mph in a 40 mph zone on Washington Street at about 3:12 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. When the officer tried to stop them, both drivers accelerated past 100 mph, according to the Auburn Police Department. Both cars turned out to be stolen.

The chase should have ended there, and in one sense it did: the officer called off the pursuit. What followed was a crash, a swap into the second car, and a return trip into the same town that put the teenagers in front of a set of stop sticks.

The 100 mph stop attempt on Washington Street

Officer Kyle Lareau made the first stop attempt, according to a report on the department’s press release issued Tuesday, Oct. 6. Both Challengers went over 100 mph. Lareau did not launch a high-speed pursuit; he discontinued the attempt and notified neighboring departments, which tracked the vehicles outside Auburn. Police later determined that both Challengers had been stolen.

Autoblog, which carried the story to a national car audience on Oct. 9, describes the cars as Dodge Chargers and says radio tracking replaced a pursuit vehicle. The department’s own account, as relayed by the other outlets, calls them Challengers, and that is the name used here. The decision to stand down rather than chase at triple-digit speed was the department’s choice, and its statement presents it as part of the result. The release closes: “No unnecessary pursuit. Good communication. Stop sticks. K9 on the ground. Drone in the air. Smart, patient police work.”

Stop sticks as the car re-entered town

During the tracking, one of the Challengers crashed, and its driver got into the second car, which kept moving. Officers then learned the remaining Challenger was heading back toward Auburn. Officer Daniel Hemingway deployed stop sticks as it re-entered the town, deflating its tires, according to Newport Dispatch’s account.

The car crashed a short distance later, and both occupants ran. That second crash, caused by the deflated tires, closed the loop: the pair had fled the town at over 100 mph and came back to it, where officers were already positioned ahead of the car. Officer David Ljunggren and K9 Biza searched on foot, Officer Matthew Laskes flew a drone overhead, and Auburn officers and Massachusetts State Police set up a perimeter. Biza tracked through woods and found one person hiding behind a business on Route 20. The second person was found nearby, and no further crash or injury is reported in the department’s account.

Auburn’s officers have handled stolen vehicles at scale before. In December 2023, detectives recovered 16 vehicles stolen from a local rental business within 36 hours, three of them hidden in Auburn, nine in Natick and one in South Boston. The dog on the Route 20 track also has a local record: Biza followed a missing 12-year-old’s scent over roughly two miles in the Pakachoag Hill area in a search reported Feb. 1, 2024, and the child was found safe, with Ljunggren as handler.

Pursuit statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics

Calling off a chase fits a pattern the federal numbers describe. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, in a May 2017 report covering 2012 and 2013, estimated 68,000 vehicle pursuits by general purpose state and local agencies in 2012, with 351 people dying in pursuit-related crashes that year. From 1996 to 2015, an average of 355 people were killed annually.

In the voluntary Pursuits database, which covers 115 agencies and 5,568 pursuits from 2009 to 2013 and is not nationally representative, 15 percent of pursuits ended in a collision. An officer or supervisor discontinuing the pursuit was the ending in 25 percent, and the fleeing driver voluntarily stopping in 29 percent. About 69 percent began with a traffic violation, as the Auburn stop did with a car clocked at 60 mph in a 40 mph zone.

Arrests and charges in Auburn

Both people arrested were from Worcester. Police identified Jaelen Cannon Feraud, 18, and said a second suspect, a 16-year-old juvenile, was also arrested; the juvenile was not named, and the department did not specify the juvenile’s charges. According to Patch’s report, Feraud was charged with failure to stop for police, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, operating with a suspended license, possession of burglarious tools and receiving a stolen motor vehicle. Those are allegations, and the department’s release says suspects are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The reports reviewed give no arraignment date, bail ruling or court for either suspect. Feraud’s case in the Massachusetts courts, and the unspecified charges against the 16-year-old, are the parts of the night that remain unreported.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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