Armed with guns and homemade silencer, man smoked meth before leading troopers on chase

A Kansas man is accused of leading state troopers on a chase after smoking meth and allegedly had guns, ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a homemade silencer.

Codey Deon Elsasser is accused of speeding away from a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper the morning of Nov. 4 in Rice County before he was arrested after a police pursuit.

A federal grand jury indicted Elsasser, 26, of Arlington, with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a user of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of a rifle with a sawed off barrel and unlawful possession of a silencer.

The charges were announced by U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister in a news release last week.

Law enforcement gives the following account of what happened, in an affidavit written by an ATF agent and filed in court:

A KHP trooper tried to conduct a traffic stop on Elsasser’s vehicle, which was traveling 88 mph in a 65 mph zone in Barton County. Elsasser then led the trooper on a chase with speeds exceeding 100 mph. The chase ended in Rice County when Elsasser pulled over about four miles into the pursuit.

The state trooper asked him he would find any firearms in the vehicle. Elsasser told the trooper that “it didn’t matter, he was going to find them anyway,” court documents state.

A search of the vehicle “found illegal narcotics, drug paraphernalia, four firearms, to include a homemade silencer, approximately 380 live ammunition cartridges and a bulletproof vest,” the ATF agent wrote.

The weapons were a Noreen Firearms, model BBN-223, .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle; a Mossberg, model 500AB, 12 gauge pump action weapon made from a shotgun; and a Springfield Armory, model XDM, 9mm caliber semi-automatic pistol.

Federal prosecutors are asking for Elsasser’s property to be forfeited, including the three guns, ammunition and the silencer.

About 0.13 grams of methamphetamine in a baggy and a smoking pipe with meth residue were also found in the vehicle. Elsasser told the trooper that he “had smoked methamphetamine earlier that same morning,” according to a criminal complaint.

Elsasser has two prior convictions for possession and distribution of drugs in Barton County, Kansas Department of Corrections records show. He was listed as on in-state post release in Reno County before the Nov. 4 incident, when the prison system issued an arrest warrant.