A high-speed
pursuit that began early this morning in Duneland ended on the Indiana Toll
Road with the arrest of a Portage resident on multiple charges, the Porter
County Sheriff’s Police said.
Charged with
driving while suspended-prior, possession of marijuana, reckless driving,
criminal mischief, and resisting law enforcement was Sarah Else, 28, of 3308
Ashland St.
According to
police, at 12:52 a.m. an officer on patrol stopped Else in the area of C.R.
1050N and C.R. 50W after a computer check listed her status as
suspended-prior. On making contact with Else, the officer detected the odor
of raw marijuana from her vehicle’s interior, police said. Else, for her
part, “began to beg” the officer not to take her to jail, offered him $500
“to let her go,” and then refused to exit the vehicle when instructed,
police said.
At that point
another officer, who’d joined the first at the scene, attempted to pull Else
from her vehicle but she “was able to jerk away from him” and “then slammed
her foot on the gas pedal and took off east,” narrowly missing the other
officer’s foot, police said.
Both officers--with
the assistance by now of the Chesterton PD--followed Else on C.R. 1050N,
where she reached a speed of approximately 80 miles per hour before making
it to Ind. 49 and slowing long enough to head south, police said. Else then
turned into the Toll Road entrance, where she busted through a stop-gate arm
and went west, accelerating to “close to 120 mph,”
police said.
At the Portage
Plaza Else barreled through another stop-gate arm, was unable to avoid a
pair of “stingers” successfully deployed in her path by Portage PD units,
but even with damage to both her front and rear passenger’s side tires Else
managed to continue her flight for nearly two more miles, before coming to a
stop at the Hardee’s North Plaza, police said.
There Else “was
taken to the ground for officer safety,” handcuffed, and placed in a squad
car for transport to Porter County Jail. “As she was being escorted to the
vehicle she continually yelled at me that I had ruined her life,” the
original investigating officer stated in his report.
An inventory of
Else’s vehicle produced approximately 0.5 grams of marijuana, police added.
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