Crime & Safety

Low-Speed Chase Leads to Confiscation of Woman's Car

Not all pursuits are "hot," and this one was decidedly not. Nonetheless, a West Allis woman managed to shake off the Tosa police by pure, slow stubbornness, although in the end she paid the price.

A Wauwatosa police officer eventually, on orders, abandoned his pursuit of a woman who refused to stop for him, but he and other officers paid a visit to her home, found her car there and took it away when she wouldn't answer the door.

That worked. Later, in order to get her wheels back, she did answer and accepted a citation and mandatory court date for fleeing an officer. 

According to the police report:

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At 2:30 a.m. Saturday, a patrol officer saw the 27-year-old West Allis woman speeding in the 100 block of North Mayfair Road, ran her plates, and learned that she was suspended for unpaid parking tickets.

He turned on his emergency lights, then hit his siren, but the woman refused to pull over even though the ensuing .7-mile “chase” never reached speeds greater than 30 mph, with the pursuing officer right behind the woman but unable to persuade her to stop.

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At that hour, no other officers were able to respond quickly enough to cut the woman off, and when she approached the city limits, a supervisor told the pursuing officer to abandon the chase.

A little later, though, Wauwatosa and West Allis police went to the woman’s address and found her car parked nearby. She would not answer the door to her upstairs flat, and her mother, who lives in the lower, was uncooperative.

So, the Wauwatosa police towed away the suspect’s car and impounded it at the station.

At 10:13 p.m., they finally got her to answer her door, and she asked where her car was — indicating, the original pursuing officer said, that she was well aware that it had been taken in a police action.

She was handed a $1,311 citation for fleeing a police officer, with a mandatory court date, and told that her car was at the Wauwatosa Police Department, where she could retrieve it at her convenience.


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