Deputies: Wrong-way motorcyclist tried to carjack truck

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The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office says a wrong-way driver is behind bars after he tried to carjack another driver while fleeing from deputies yesterday.

Deputies say it was just after 3 p.m. Wednesday when they got reports of a motorcycle speeding the wrong way in the emergency lane of eastbound Interstate 4 near McIntosh Road. A sheriff's office helicopter soon spotted the motorcycle, which was headed westbound by that point.

When deputies caught up with the motorcyclist at Brandon Town Center, he told them his back seat had flown off the bike and he had gone back to look for it. But then he sped away from deputies and fled into a gas station along Adamo Drive.

The sheriff's office helicopter was still overhead and spotted the man -- later identified as Corey Lavon Johnson Jr. of Lakeland -- going in and then coming out in different clothes. The airborne deputies tracked Johnson as he ran along State Road 60, where he eventually tried to carjack a passing pickup truck.

The truck driver and passenger tried to fight him off -- even as the truck sped away. Eventually Johnson leaped from the truck and a passing citizen tackled him and held him until deputies caught up.

Johnson, 22, faces charges including fleeing and eluding, driving on a suspended license, resisting arrest, and carjacking.