Police Chase Men in Stolen Car Far Into Milwaukee

For the second time in two weeks, unknown suspects led Wauwatosa police on a high-speed chase that would eventually be called off for the safety of officers and the public.

At 12:02 a.m. Saturday, two men in a stolen car fled from a Tosa police officer and raced 4 miles at high speeds before the pursuit was abandoned.

A patrol officer ran the plates of a white Chrysler Sebring he spotted in the 6100 block of West Meinecke Avenue and they came back stolen.

He followed until the car turned north on 55th and then west on Wright Street. There, the driver pulled to the curb, and the officer pulled up behind and turned on his emergency lights.

But the pair took off at high speed, running through nine stop signs on residential Wright Street. After going south on 69th Street, the fleeing driver turned east onto North Avenue in front of an oncoming car, that driver narrowly avoiding a collision by slamming on his brakes.

Tosa police pursued well into central Milwaukee on Lisbon Avenue as the driver of the stolen car repeatedly ran red lights and passed other cars on the left, in the oncoming lane of traffic.

The chase was abandoned in the 2400 block of Lisbon, where it ends and merges into east-west Walnut Street. A pursuing officer said his top speed during the chase was 76 miles per hour, and that of the suspect between 80 and 85 mph.

A week earlier, a fleeing driver first spotted on Mayfair Road near Potter Road raced up Mayfair, turned east onto North Avenue and reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour as he fled east through the confines of the East Tosa business district ahead of four squad cars.

That chase of more than 3 miles was abandoned as well after the nearest officer saw the vehicle pass another car on the left in the midst of the narrowed and winding "chicanes" of the district and nearly drive an oncoming driver off the street.