Drug bust sends officers on high-speed chase
Posted: Mar 6, 2012 2:45 AM EDT | Updated: Nov 5, 2014 7:43 PM EDT
NILES, Mich. -- During an undercover drug sting, Berrien County officers confronted two men after they sold drugs to one of their officers. When police went to arrest the men, they sped off.
The men sent police on a high-speed chase around 5:30 p.m. Monday night, coming to a sudden end when the driver of the car blew a stop sign and rolled the car into a deep ravine at the intersection of Niles Buchanan and Mayflower Roads.
The men were both rushed to the hospital. Police say the passenger was taken to Memorial Hospital, in South Bend, after suffering serious injures. The driver was taken to Lakeland Hospital, in Niles, to be treated for minor injures.
Berrien County's undercover drug unit had met the two men at the truck stop off U.S. 12 and Mayflower Road in Niles. "Our unit has been working for several weeks on some buy busts in this area," says Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey.
Police chased the car North down Mayflower Road until coming to the intersection at Niles Buchanan Road, where the driver ignored a stop sign, lost control and rolled down an embankment several feet below the road.
"We are very thankful that no on was coming. The good Lord was watching out for everybody else that was driving and the intersection was free when he ran the stop sign,"says Bailey.
Both the driver and his passenger were injured in the rollover crash and were rushed to the hospital. Once released from the hospital, both men will be taken into police custody. "We are trying to get anyone that is trying to sell drugs on the streets, we have zero tolerance for drugs being sold in Berrien County," says Bailey.