Search near Marietta after person flees OHP arrest attempt at I-35 port of entry

By GvilleTX Newsroom

Love County authorities said officers were searching near Marietta, Oklahoma, for a person who ran off on foot while Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers tried to make an arrest at the Interstate 35 port of entry. In a public alert, the sheriff's office told people to stay clear of the area and not to approach the person.

The search area sits just across the state line from Cooke County. Love County's official sheriff's office site names Cooke County among the Texas counties on its southern border.

In the alert, posted to the sheriff's office Facebook page, the agency credited the arrest attempt to OHP and said the person left on foot. The sheriff's office said officers were still working to locate the person, and the alert did not report anyone in custody.

The same alert described an active law enforcement response and asked the public to keep out of the area while officers searched.

State records place the site at the Love Port of Entry, listed at 11453 I-35 in Marietta.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation describes its ports of entry as state-line checkpoints for commercial trucks rather than ordinary roadside scales. Crews there check carrier credentials and run safety inspections, according to the agency's program page.

The Marietta station traces to a 2015 approval for a weigh and inspection station on I-35 between Thackerville and Marietta. ODOT said at the time that it would build the facility and maintain it. Staff from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Department of Public Safety were assigned to weigh and inspect trucks entering from Texas.

ODOT lists the Love County site at the Texas line as complete. A second finished port of entry stands on US-69/75 in Bryan County, also at the state line, which puts the Marietta corridor inside a wider state network for freight enforcement along the Texas border.

Commercial vehicle work for the highway patrol runs through Troop S. The Department of Public Safety describes that unit as its size and weight division. Troop S weighs commercial vehicles, enforces state size-and-weight law, escorts oversize loads, applies federal regulations and runs education programs for motor carriers.

The sheriff's office gave the public two instructions while the response continued: avoid the area, and do not approach the person.