High-speed chase results in damages and an arrest
By John Joyce
Published in News on February 3, 2016 1:46 PM
Full Size
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Patrol cars from the Mount Olive Police Department, the N.C. Highway Patrol and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office are lined up along the side of Thunder Swamp Road Tuesday afternoon following the high-speed chase of a truck hauling a trailer with lawn care equipment that began inside the Mount Olive city limits.
Full Size
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
From left, Sgt. Wes Aldridge and Patrolmen Blake Turner and Jose Trinidad with the Mount Olive Police Department search the trailer attached to a truck that was involved in the chase.
Three cars were damaged or disabled, and a suspect injured, during a high-speed chase Tuesday that reached speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour and lasted the better part of 15 minutes, criss-crossing the county, law enforcement officials said.
The Mount Olive Police Department, the N.C. Highway Patrol and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office each participated in a high speed chase Tuesday afternoon that began with a moving violation in the Mount Olive city limits.
"It started with a careless and reckless (driving) at County and Breazeale," Mount Olive Police Officer Blake Turner said.
Officers at the scene said the driver of a Dodge Ram 2500 -- with a trailer fully loaded with landscaping equipment in tow -- refused to stop.
A trooper and a Mount Olive police officer eventually pitted the truck, forcing the driver off the road and to a stop just before a small bridge off of Thunder Swamp Road near N.C. Highway 55.
Dennis James Albertson, 35, of Raynor Mill Road in Goldsboro is charged by Mount Olive with two counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer, and a single count each of felony fleeing to elude arrest, aggressive driving, driving while license revoked after impaired, injury to personal property of a law enforcement vehicle, failure to stop at a stop sign and failure to stop at a traffic signal.
The Highway Patrol will likely have additional charges. Albertson was transported to Wayne Memorial Hospital to be checked out following the wreck that ended the chase.
"We set up a rolling road block," Trooper Shane Smith said. "He went around everybody."
It was Smith, last to join in the chase, who, along with a Mount Olive police officer in an unmarked Crown Victoria, finally forced the Ram to a stop.
Smith said none of the lawmen were injured.
"Just him," he said.
A crumpled Dodge Charger belonging to the Highway Patrol lay in a ditch just beyond the intersection of Thunder Swamp Road and N.C. 55. in front of Thunder Swamp Pentecostal Holiness Church. The church lawn bore the marks of the chase, Tuesday.
"He went through the church yard ramming cars," Smith said.
Trooper Charles Granger, the driver of the Charger, was unharmed.
Albertson is due to appear in Wayne County District Court later today where a full list of charges will be presented against him.