Hour-long police pursuit wakes city in wee hours

A ‘‘casual police chase’’ through Hamilton in the early hours of Monday was a bad dream for hundreds of residents preparing for the first day of the working week.

Residents around the city complained about being woken up and kept awake from 3am.

Others saw the fleeing grey and silver vehicle driving around, slowly, on its rims.

The hour-long police chase eventually ended after the car drove over two sets of spikes at 4am. It started when the driver of a Toyota Landcruiser failed to stop for police on a suburban street and went 17 kilometres out of the city before coming back into the city.

The driver wound round the city trying to avoid capture even after the two sets of spikes popped three of the vehicle’s tyres.

It was eventually stopped on and arterial road where a man, 30, and a woman, 36, were arrested.

Senior Sergeant Dean Anderson said a dog unit initially tried to stop the stolen vehicle.

He was not able to say what speeds were reached at the start of the chase, but the car slowed down dramatically in the second half after it had gone over the first set of spikes.

‘‘After the spikes it went at extremely slow speeds and kept going on its rims,’’ Anderson said.

One witness captured a video near the end of the chase, captioning it ‘‘just a casual police chase’’. Others complained about the sirens waking them up.

And for all those people whose slumber was disrupted by the numerous sirens, police policy is that while undertaking urgent driving duty police must use lights and sirens at all times.

‘‘If it’s a pursuit, the lead unit must be using both those features the entire chase,’’ Anderson said.

‘‘Even when the pursuit is going extremely slowly.’’

However, the following units may just flash their lights.

But it is dependent on the shift supervisor how many vehicles are in the lead unit and following unit, whose job it is to assess the safety and demands of the pursuit, Anderson said.