Watch fleeing DUI suspect scale Highway 240 wall in Richland
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The chase began near the Columbia Park Trail exit and involved multiple highways.
- Video shows the suspect scaling a concrete sound barrier after stopping on Highway 240.
- Police arrested Michael Wisar after a drone located him and officers found drugs nearby.
A suspected intoxicated driver led state troopers on a wild chase Friday that included an athletic jump over an 7-foot wall along Highway 240 that was captured on video.
The video clip showed suspect Michael Wisar, 41, driving the wrong side of the bypass highway, then jumping from the moving car and scaling the shelter belt sound wall, followed by a Washington State Patrol trooper.
The 35-minute police pursuit started a little earlier when Wisar drove past a trooper, who had stopped another driver on the highway near the Columbia Park Trail exit just before 6:10 p.m., Trooper Carlos Mata told the Tri-City Herald.
Mata said the trooper suspected Wisar was driving impaired and began following him, signaling for him to pull over.
Instead, Wisar sped away in the silver sedan, turning onto Interstate 182 and then the Highway 240 bypass. He reached speeds of 90 mph, Mata said.
But the trooper had backed off from the pursuit and stopped chasing him when Wisar started driving into oncoming lanes, said Mata.
Then, Wisar turned around near the Yakima barricade and was headed back into Richland when officers laid out a spike strip to deflate two of his tires.
Wisar was driving in the oncoming lanes on Highway 240 when the sedan drifted toward the curb with its driver-side door open and stopped near the Richland Airport.
A bystander’s video showed Wisar jump out of the car and over the concrete sound barrier along the shelter belt trail.
Richland police officers and Benton County sheriff’s deputies helped WSP search the area for him. Deputies used a drone to find him in a nearby backyard, and he was arrested about 6:50 p.m., said Mata.
Police reported finding drugs near where he ran from the car.
Wisar had three outstanding warrants, including one for escaping community custody from a Franklin County conviction for assault and hit-and-run after pleading guilty to ramming a Pasco officer while trying to flee a Walmart parking lot.
On Monday, Judge Bronson Brown set his bail at $80,000 at the request of the deputy prosecutor.
He is being held on investigation of attempting to elude police, trespassing, DUI and four counts of delivering methamphetamines.