Alleged gunman Jake Dohnt arrested outside Port Wakefield
WALLAROO fugitive and accused gunman Jake Dohnt has appeared before court less than 24 hours after he was captured at gunpoint in a paddock just outside Port Wakefield. A woman suspected of assisting him has also been arrested and is set to face court.
WALLAROO fugitive and accused gunman Jake Lloyd Dohnt has appeared before court less than 24 hours after he was captured at gunpoint in a paddock just outside Port Wakefield.
On Wednesday, 25-year-old Dohnt appeared before Elizabeth Magistrate Yoong Fee Chin via videolink from the Port Pirie Magistrates Court .
Kylie-Ann Pligl, for Dohnt, said her client would not be making an application for bail before his case was adjourned until January 2019.
The police prosecutor sought a delay of 10 months — until May 2019 — because of a backlog at Forensic Science SA for DNA analysis, which currently has an eight-month wait.
He said it was a “complex matter” and involved Dohnt allegedly threatening a police officer by pointing an imitation handgun at him before that officer fired a single shot.
“A gun matching that description was found in a backyard ... and needs to be forensically examined for the purposes of DNA,” he said.
He told the court the DNA analysis was “crucial with respect to some of the charges”.
“The ballistics report has a four-month delay but that’s neither here nor there,” he said.
Magistrate Chin refused to adjourned the matter until May and instead delayed the case for six months.
Dohnt faces 15 charges, including endanger life, driving dangerously and threatening to kill, stemming from the two-day manhunt that took place in Wallaroo on Monday and Tuesday.
Dohnt was arrested on Tuesday night following a dramatic highway pursuit which ended in a car crash before officers swooped on the fugitive following a 28-hour manhunt.
Just hours earlier, a 27-year-old woman was arrested in Clearview and is connected to the widespread search, police say.
She has been charged with impeding an investigation, breach of bail and will front the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Dohnt had been on the run since Monday, but police received information he was travelling in a grey Holden sedan, which was later spotted travelling north on Port Wakefield Rd, St Kilda, at about 4pm on Tuesday.
A police helicopter was called into assist while traffic was stopped in both directions north and south of Port Wakefield.
Police said the suspect’s vehicle was successfully spiked twice, however, the car continued north through Port Wakefield.
The vehicle then collided with another car about two kilometres north of the intersection of Port Augusta Hwy and the Copper Coast Hwy.
The driver of the vehicle suffered minor injuries, police said on Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect then ran from the scene of the crash and was chased on foot by patrols into a nearby paddock.
He was subsequently arrested at gunpoint, police said.
Witness Joe Headlam, of Adelaide, was in Dublin when he saw a dark grey sedan allegedly speeding north along Port Wakefield Rd about 5pm.
It is believed Dohnt was in the car.
“I just saw him coming just because you could hear him a mile away because he was doing about 160km/h on three tyres,” Mr Headlam said.
“The front left (tyre) was blown.
“The noise of the tyre on the road, it sounded like a jet going past.”
Mr Headlam said the police helicopter appeared to be tracking the car from above and about 12 police cars, including an armoured bearcat, were following from a distance.
He said the police cars did not have their lights and sirens activated.
Mr Headlam said he thought the driver would crash.
“Luckily there wasn’t much traffic at the time,” he said.
Earlier, armed with a handgun, Dohnt forced a small township on the Copper Coast into lockdown as specialist police swarmed the streets hunting him down.
Police had previously described the 25-year-old alleged gunman as “armed and dangerous”.
However a handgun believed to be the same weapon Dohnt allegedly pointed at police before they fired shots was found in a Wallaroo backyard.
The small silver handgun was found about midday on Tuesday — less than 24 hours after Dohnt’s alleged confrontation with police on Daly St.
Owners of the home, which is just one street from where the shooting occurred, said Dohnt tried to hide in their lounge room to escape police.
“He jumped the fence, dropped the weapon and come around (the front) and gone straight in the lounge room,” resident Mark O’Brien said.
“The old guy that lives next door told him to (go away) and he did.
“I walked outside specifically looking to see whether he dropped a weapon because he jumped (the back) fence.
“I didn’t touch it, I just left it there.”
Police collected the evidence on Tuesday afternoon.
The manhunt lasted two days after a section of the town was declared a dangerous area and residents were warned to stay indoors from about 2pm on Monday.
The lockdown area was shifted to another part of the town, before the declaration ended after 12 hours.
Police then moved its base of operations to Kadina. Only a small section of Daly St, where officers fired a shot at Dohnt after he allegedly levelled his firearm at them, was closed on Tuesday night. It was declared a crime scene and has been investigated by a forensics team.
A heavy police presence, including STAR Group officers, Dog Operations Unit and the armoured Bearcat vehicle, moved from property to property in their search of Dohnt.
The hunt was sparked after police tried to pull Dohnt over on the Spencer Hwy about 1am on Monday.
But instead, he led police on a pursuit.
His car was found abandoned in Wallaroo before he allegedly pointed his handgun at police, forcing an officer to fire a single shot in his direction. He had been hunted ever since.
Operations Inspector for the Yorke and Mid North Allison Clark on Tuesday said officers had tried to contact Dohnt on his mobile phone during the manhunt but were unsuccessful.
Police believe Dohnt was being harboured by people within the local community, she said.
No arrests were made before Dohnt’s arrested but Ms Clark warned those hiding Dohnt would be “dealt with” by police.
Locals were warned not to approach the suspect as he is considered “armed and dangerous”.
On Monday night, residents were either not allowed to return to their homes or were told to stay inside and lock all their doors and windows.
Just before 10pm on Monday, STAR Group officers left Wallaroo and raided a property in nearby Kadina in what they called an “intelligence-gathering exercise”.
Wallaroo residents said they were terrified at the thought a man armed with a gun could be hiding in their town.
One woman, who lives in the danger area but was forced to sleep at a hotel Monday night, made a plea for the man to surrender.
“I’m just scared, I’ve never been through this before,” she told The Advertiser.
“Just come out and surrender, it’s the best thing you can do. Everyone is worried … he needs to be caught.
“I’m scared the police might barge into my house.”
Jake Dohnt was taken to Kadina for questioning and is expected to face the Port Pirie Magistrates Court on Wednesday.