Local News

Grants Pass Police arrested a man for six alleged crimes after he was caught trying to steal gasoline from trucks at the new U-Haul facility in the north part of the city.

According to the Police Department, officers responded to a theft complaint at the U-Haul yard in the 2300-block of NW Hawthorne Avenue early Friday morning.

Police said the manager called 9-1-1 to report a male subject was walking around the trucks with a fuel can before the yard opened for business. Responding officers contacted 30-year-old Chance Vaughn-Edward Kersten amongst the trucks while carrying a fuel can, a rubber hose and smelling like gasoline.

Kersten admitted to unsuccessfully attempting to siphon fuel from at least one of the trucks. While he was being placed into custody, he was found to be in possession of a counterfeit driver's license that had his photo but the name and information of another person. The fake identification was seized as evidence.

Chance Kersten was subsequently lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Aggravated Identity Theft, Identity Theft, Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument, 1st-Degree Theft, Attempted 3rd-Degree Theft and Unlawful Entry into a Motor Vehicle. He was being held without bail.