E. Wenatchee Police Chase Leads To Power Outage, Suspect At Large

Police are still looking for a suspect who led them on a chase that caused a power outage Saturday morning in East Wenatchee.

Officers say a car East Wenatchee Police identified as being stolen out of Moses Lake fled a traffic stop and led them on a high-speed chase at about 4:30 am Saturday.

They say the car fled onto Rock Island Road just south of 3rd Street SE where the driver failed to handle a curve, left the roadway, and hit a power pole leading to a power outage.

Officers say they confronted the driver who ran away on foot into thick brush.

Wenatchee Police along with Deputy’s from Douglas County Sheriffs and Troopers from Washington State Patrol helped to set up containment in the area.

A Chelan County Sheriff K9 was brought in to help track down the suspect, but the search was called off after about an hour with no results.

The suspect is still at large, although East Wenatchee Police arrested a passenger in the car and say they collected information to identify the suspect who fled.

About 600 people in the area were without power for a time Saturday morning after the power pole hit by the car was nearly knocked to the ground.

Meanwhile, a vehicle theft in progress was reported just a few blocks away from the crash scene.

East Wenatchee Police say a search began immediately with a Sergeant locating the vehicle within minutes about a mile away abandoned with the stereo missing.

Officers say while they were recovering that vehicle a suspicious person in the area was confronted by police and attempted to run away. That suspect was quickly chased down.

He was cleared from involvement in the stolen vehicle, but was wanted on several other charges from previous weeks and was arrested.

East Wenatchee Police think the suspect who fled from the car crash also stole the second vehicle before abandoning it.

That stolen vehicle, a pickup truck, was returned to the owner within minutes, although the stereo was missing. East Wenatchee Police Sgt. James Marshall said the owner had been warming up the truck and was inside his residence when the truck was stolen.

Sgt. Marshall said it's only  a matter of time before the at large suspect is tracked down.

One East Wenatchee Officer received a minor injury during the foot chase which required brief medical treatment.