Sheriff: Chireno man arrested after crime spree involving ramming at school, burned vehicles, home disturbances

CHIRENO, Texas (KTRE) - Deputies managed to arrest a Chireno man following a crime spree in which he rammed a vehicle into the front of Chireno School, caught a school police vehicle on fire and caused issues at other homes.

Deputies arrested Colton Lee Dickerson, 30, on County Road 433, shortly before 7 a.m.

According to Chireno ISD, the incident happened before any faculty or staff members arrived for the final workday of the year.

Additionally the school says all activities to celebrate the end of the school year will continue as planned including graduation set for 7 p.m. tonight.

Sheriff Jason Bridges in video on Facebook said there are several crime scenes to process and there are pending charges, including burglary and arson.

Bridges said the first call came in at 5:24 a.m. Friday in the 6800 block of FM 95 at an alarm call at a home. A homeowner was at the home and there was a busted window to a cabin door. Then another call came at 5:54 a.m. of a vehicle fire in the 2100 block of County Road 486. The vehicle is a total loss, Bridges said. Deputies reported finding suspicious vehicle tracks in the yard and a buttstock to a weapon in the yard that did not belong to the homeowner.

The next call came at 6:02 a.m. from a witness at Chireno school that the police car parked in front of the school was on fire. Bridges said someone rammed the front doors of the high school but was not able to get through, due to the extra protection and shielding on the doors.

Another call came at 6:21 a.m. at another home and someone hit the back porch of the home, which woke the homeowners up. A woman at the house said she saw someone spraying something on the back porch and she confronted him, Bridges said. Bridges said Dickerson set a cushion on fire, but the woman grabbed the cushion and threw it into the yard to prevent the porch from catching fire.

“He told her he was sorry and told her just to get out of the house,” Bridges said.

Dickerson then drove off but struck a vehicle before he left, Bridges said.

A fifth call came at 6:27 a.m. on County Road 444. Bridges said Dickerson drove up to a home, struck a vehicle and grabbed a gun from inside the vehicle. Bridges said the homeowner confronted Dickerson and Dickerson pointed the gun at the homeowner and left.

“But he took the wrong driveway and went to the back part of the land and started coming back up,” Bridges said.

A second confrontation then happened and the homeowner, who had a gun this time, shot at Dickerson.

By this time, deputies were in the area and located Dickerson on County Road 433 and were able to arrest him.

Bridges said there was a sixth call between the other calls listed above, on County Road 46, in which Dickerson broke a window of a work truck. Some of the scenes revealed beer bottles and liquor bottles. Bridges said Dickerson smelled of a strong alcoholic odor when he was arrested.

“We found THC wax inside of his car as well, and we found some bottles that we don’t know if he was huffing them bottles or not,” Bridges said. “When we took him into custody, he was saying some obviously some weird things to us, telling us this was an FBI operation and a government operation and things such as that.”

Bridges said there is a lot to process, but scenes will be cleared before graduation.

“So we’re not going to let this fool interfere with all these kids’ hard work to graduate,” Bridges said. “That’s still going to occur. So y’all don’t worry about that. That’s still happening here tonight.”