Man allegedly involved in three high-speed chases in two days

A 20-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for eluding after he led three officers on high-speed chases as he made his way to Marinette County last week.

According to the Wauwatosa police reports:

The man threatened his mother at 6:14 p.m. Feb. 8 because he had no money after being released from jail a week earlier. He was on probation for assaulting his father.

At some point during the argument, he had a knife and locked himself in the house in the 1700 block of Alta Vista Avenue. He took a family vehicle without permission and fled before police arrived.

An officer caught up with the man at 65th Street and Garfield Avenue, where he started to pull toward the curb and indicated with a turn signal that he was pulling over. Instead, he continued to drive slowly, pulling in front of another vehicle and accelerating onto North Avenue.

The officer pursued the man's vehicle for less than a mile because he drove through red lights at 60th and 55th streets, nearly causing a collision at the latter. The chase had to be terminated for safety reasons.

The next day, local police learned that the same Ford Focus was involved in a gas station drive-off in Cleveland, Wis. He tried to pay by credit card and became irate when the clerk asked him for ID. He threw down the credit card and took off. Suspecting the card had been stolen, the clerk called the State Patrol.

A state trooper located the man's car and tried to pull him over. This time the man led law enforcement on a high-speed chase the spanned nearly all of Manitowoc and Brown counties before he got away.

He was spotted a third time - this time by a trooper in Marinette County at 3:27 a.m. Feb. 9 - leaving a restaurant. He again tried to take off in the Focus, then abandoned the vehicle to run on foot. He was arrested several hours later.

District 3 of the State Patrol is looking into felony eluding charges and Wauwatosa may pursue the same in Milwaukee County.