A man accused of pepper-spraying a liquor store attendant and grabbing about 30 cartons of cigarettes led Casper police on a high-speed chase late Tuesday night.
The man, who isn’t being identified until he makes his first court appearance, also tried to flee on foot after police deployed spike strips to disable the dark Ford Explorer he was driving, said Amber Freestone, Casper Police Department spokesperson.
The tail end of the chase was caught on video by Josh Gollnick, a local resident, who said it was an exciting adrenaline rush to watch.
“I had just pulled up to my brother’s house when I saw a giant line of cars coming down Collins Street,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I knew right away it was a chase.”
There were multiple police vehicles after the Explorer, which made a sharp turn at a very high rate of speed, he said.
“It was pretty wild. He was going super fast, and the cops — it was way different from what you see on TV,” Gollnick said. “The sounds, the tires squealing and all the cops, (the driver) barely made that turn and those first few cops, they barely made that turn too.”
He estimated “probably 15 or so” police chasing the Explorer, “if not more.”
After stopping because of the spike strips, the suspect got out and tried to run from the scene, but was apprehended by Buster, the K-9, Freestone said.
“The cops were running through the weeds after him, and you could hear the dog barking at him,” Gollnick added.”
What Happened?
The incident began when the liquor store clerk called 911 to report the assault with pepper spray, Freestone said. Subsequent investigation showed the theft of cigarettes from the store, which came to an estimated $2,400.
At $80-$90 a carton, the theft added up to “a felony amount of product taken from the store,” she said.
“He walked in, pepper-sprayed the clerk, and the clerk went to safety,” Freestone said, adding that investigators have looked at video surveillance from the store.
The clerk at Outlet Liquor & Tobacco who was pepper-sprayed was feeling the burn for awhile, but is OK, said store manager Samantha Moravetz.
“Oh yeah, he’s going to be OK. He said, ‘I’m glad it was me and not any of you girls,’” she said.
The suspected seemed to only be after the cigarettes, and likely got away with so many cartons because the clerk had been incapacitated by the pepper spray, Moravetz said.
After the suspect left the store, a witness flagged down another patrol officer to report a suspicious man get into a dark Ford Explorer, Freestone said.
‘Good Old Buster’
It wasn’t long before the suspect’s vehicle was located and the chase began.
Even after the Explorer had run into a field off the road near the golf course, three people got out, and one person — the robbery suspect — tried to run away on foot, she said. But he didn’t get very far.
Buster “was deployed and quickly provided assistance in apprehending the suspect,” the CPD reports in a Thursday press release.
The other two people in the Explorer were questioned, but not arrested, Freestone said.
The chase and apprehension of the suspect will be something Gollnick won’t easily forget.
“It was absolutely crazy to see it in person,” he said. “I was just far enough away to feel safe, but very intrigued at the same time. It was definitely exciting and exhilarating.”
This was the second recent robbery at Outlet Liquor & Tobacco, Moravetz said, adding the outcome is positive because nobody was seriously hurt.
She also had praise for the K-9 that stopped the suspect’s reckless getaway attempts: “Good old Buster.”
Contact Greg Johnson at greg@cowboystatedaily.com
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
