In Short, Fast Chase, Young Man Piles Up Problems

A 20-year-old man driving a former police squad car took his girlfriend for a late-night, 70-mph spin through East Tosa to celebrate her high school graduation and decided to top off the excitement by fleeing from police.

He wrecked the car and ended up in jail for eluding an officer, a felony, and was cited for operating while intoxicated, first offense.

At 2:35 a.m. June 23, a patrol officer was going north in the 2400 block of 68th Street when he saw headlights approaching fast. He quickly pulled over and doused his lights.

The oncoming car passed him at an estimated 60 to 70 mph, the officer reported, and then blew through the stop sign at 68th and Wright streets without slowing.

The officer easily recognized the make and model of the car, even in the dark and at high speed: a black Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, complete with spotlight.

He turned around to follow, and by the time he reached North Avenue, the suspect was already three blocks west and disappearing fast. Because there was no traffic on the streets, the officer deemed it safe to give chase but couldn't make up ground even at 75 mph.

Just as he was calling in that he was in hot pursuit with lights and siren, the driver ahead slowed nearly to a stop and rolled around the corner of North and Wauwtosa avenues, heading north. Now the officer had caught up to within a few car-lengths and was expecting to make the stop when the suspect took off again.

The driver turned right onto Meinecke Avenue and had topped 45 mph when the Interceptor began to fishtail. When he tried to negotiate a high-speed turn north onto 74th Street, he lost control, jumped the curb and sideswiped a tree, veered back into the road, then back over the curb and across a driveway before sideswiping another tree.

Finally, spewing smoke and sparks from a blown out front wheel, he hit a stop sign and came to a halt at Wright Street, at the end of a .4-mile chase that lasted 48 seconds.

The officer ordered the young man out of the car and facedown on the pavement, handcuffed him and took him to the police station – noticing, as he did so, a strong odor of alcohol wafting from the back of his squad car.

Without prompting, the young man volunteered that "I have prior charges" and "I was just drunk and wanted to ... run."

He failed sobriety tests and blew a .16 blood alcohol concentration on a breath test.

A passenger in the car proved to be the suspect's girlfriend, who told officers they had been at her graduation party at her mother's house and had gone out to move her boyfriend's car off the street to avoid a parking ticket.

Once in the car, they decided to "go for a drive." She told officers she didn't notice the patrol car when they passed it and didn't think her boyfriend had either. Likewise, neither saw the emergency lights or heard the siren, she said, until the squad got close behind them at North and Wauwatosa avenues.

She could not get her boyfriend to pull over, though, even when she pleaded, "Baby, please pull over. I love you. You're going to jail." He replied, she said, that he would do "almost anything" to avoid more trouble with the police.

As events proved, he was only compounding his troubles.