Driver traps car fleeing state police in Oak Park

Speeding down a busy road, an escaping passenger, fleeing across lawns, tussling with troopers — one man’s run from Michigan State Police over the weekend had it all.

The episode started at about 11 a.m. Sunday, when Metro North Post troopers tried to stop the driver of a 2001 Pontiac Grand Am on the westbound Interstate 696 service drive at Greenfield for an improper plate.

The motorist “slowed to a stop, began slow rolling onto Greenfield road, and began driving southbound on Greenfield,” state police said in a statement. Troopers turned on their siren, and the suspect took off “at a high rate of speed” southbound on Greenfield.

More than two miles later, when the Pontiac headed south on Whitmore at Sussex in Oak Park, troopers spotted an unidentified female leaving the front seat and fleeing on foot, according to the release.

Still seemingly bent on bolting, the driver continued south. But while doing so, a trooper watched “the backseat passenger motion to the driver where to turn,” the state police statement said.

The motorist then made a U-turn in front of the Stratford Villa Apartments. But, apparently not knowing that Stratford Court dead-ends, the man “became trapped,” authorities said. “After determining that he could not drive back eastbound on Stratford Court, the suspect drove onto the lawn of the apartment complex, and attempted to fit his vehicle between two apartment buildings.”

Then, with his vehicle stuck between the structures, the man tried to jump through the driver side window, state police said.

Though troopers grabbed his shirt and “gave him multiple loud verbal commands to stay in the vehicle,” the driver disobeyed and left anyway — ripping his shirt in the process.

The man raced off, but troopers eventually arrested him without incident. A passenger was released on the scene.

Later, investigators learned the suspect has a checkered past: records showed arrest warrants and no driver’s license.

The driver was held at the Oakland County Jail pending a prosecutor’s review.