Police Pursuit Ends with Crash and Injuries in Pittsfield Township

Police used stop sticks to help end a pursuit that concluded with a crash in Pittsfield Township early Thursday morning.

At 1:37 a.m., a Saline Police Department officer stopped a 2002 GMC Envoy at Michigan Avenue near Austin Road, suspecting the driver may have been impaired. When the police officer approached the driver’s side door, the driver accelerated and headed west toward Saline Township, according to Saline Police Chief Marlene Radzik.

Scanner audio files detail the pursuit. At one point, the driver was clocked going 98 mph on Michigan Avenue as he headed west. He slowed down when he turned on Feldkamp Road and then Klager Road, before he returned to Michigan Avenue and headed back east toward town at speeds of up to 95 mph. Scanner audio captured the officer asking the dispatcher to have an officer from Pittsfield Police or the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office utilize stop sticks as the vehicle sped back toward Saline. Michigan State Police troopers used the stop sticks on Michigan Avenue near the west-end party store and scored a “hit,” damaging and deflating the tires. The driver slowed down as rubber fell off the damaged tires but continued east and Saline Police continued the pursuit.

The driver crashed the vehicle into a ditch near Wapiti Way around 1:50 a.m.

The driver, a 35-year-old man from Romulus, fled on foot through a nearby wooded area.

A passenger, a 28-year-old woman from Detroit, was apprehended by a Saline police officer and she was cooperative. Police caught and arrested the man in the wooded area, Radzik said.

Both subjects sustained injuries in the crash. They were transported by ambulance to the hospital to treat the injuries that were not life-threatening, Radzik said.

The investigation is ongoing and the Saline Police Department will seek charges from the prosecutor’s office for fleeing and eluding, resisting and obstructing and operating while impaired, according to Radzik.