Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
The pursuit started at 2:07 a.m. in Giles County, state Trooper T.W. Hall said, when a deputy sheriff tried to make a routine traffic stop.
The driver of the vehicle did not stop for - and then attempted to elude - Cpl. Glenn Shrader at high speeds, said Lt. Gary Price of the Giles County Sheriff's Office.
Shrader said he tried to stop the driver in Narrows after observing that the car had its high-beam lights on and the driver slowed at a green traffic light.
The pursuit continued down U.S. 460 into Montgomery County, where Blacksburg police and county sheriff's deputies joined the chase. The car got onto Interstate 81 in Christiansburg and headed south, Hall said.
The approximately 55-mile chase ended at 2:43 a.m. near Dublin at the Exit 98 ramp, Hall said, when the car's driver lost control and tried to return to the road but got stuck in a ditch. No one was injured, and damage to the fleeing vehicle and the Giles County cruiser was minor.
During the chase and investigation, police said, they learned the vehicle had been stolen from West Virginia after a house was broken into. The car's owner, who was in the hospital, was unaware of the break-in and theft, Hall said.
Hall said he would charge the 16-year-old driver with reckless driving and driving without an operator's license. The teen-agers were taken to the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home in Christiansburg.
Other charges were pending in Pocahontas County.
Herbie Thomas contributed information for this report.
by CNB