An Indianapolis woman is facing multiple charges after leading officers on Tuesday on a wild mid-afternoon chase up Ind. 49 and into Indiana Dunes State Park, Chesterton Police said.

Britni L. Morrison, 29, was charged with operating while intoxicated; resisting law enforcement with a motor vehicle; criminal recklessness with a motor vehicle; battery; leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily injury; and leaving the scene of a property damage accident, police said.

The incident began at 3:13 p.m., police said, when Morrison, driving a 1999 Honda Accord, rear ended a second vehicle in the area of Ind. 49 and Gateway Blvd., causing the driver of the second vehicle “minor injuries with complaint of pain.”

Morrison fled the scene but responding officers “were able to immediately locate Morrison and her damaged vehicle northbound on Ind. 49,” police said. Morrison did not respond to the activated lights and sirens of officers’ marked squad cars, however, but instead swerved at and around pursuing officers, police said.

“Morrison also attempted to slam on her brakes in an apparent attempt to collide with pursuing vehicles, causing them to engage in emergency braking maneuvers,” police said.

The pursuit continued northbound to the entrance of Indiana Dunes State Park, where Morrison collided with a large landscaping boulder and came to a stop, police said. There, standing at a “safe distance,” officers directed her to exit the vehicle but Morrison “failed to respond and loud music could be heard coming from her vehicle,” police said.

Morrison then put her vehicle in reverse and “abruptly accelerated”—prompting officers to scatter—and headed into the property and ultimately into a parking lot closed due to construction. Although the lot itself was empty, police said, “several beach visitors were near a corner of the lot that Morrison was heading for at a high rate of speed.”

Officers did at last manage to box in Morrison’s vehicle “on all four sides,” police said, at which point she again threw her vehicle into reverse and struck a CPD squad occupied by an officer, colliding as well with a Burns Harbor squad and a Porter one.

When “forcibly removed from her vehicle” and handcuffed, police said, Morrison “was incoherent, laughing uncontrollably, and speaking nonsense.” She was subsequently transported to Porter hospital, where she advised that “she had been using bath salts up to two hours prior to the incident,” police said.

A search warrant was obtained and executed for a blood draw, police added, during which “Morrison stood up and kicked hospital staff,” until finally calming down and then laughing “hysterically.”

Morrison was medically cleared and transported to Porter County Jail.

Posted 8/24/2011