Clare chase nabs thief and vehicles stolen in Mt. Pleasant, Isabella County

A Clare County man driving an SUV stolen in Mt. Pleasant led Clare deputies on a chase through ditches, snow banks and a farm field Tuesday morning before fleeing on foot and being captured.

Clare sheriff’s deputies were initially looking for a GMC Denali that had just been stolen in the area of Vandecar Road and Coleman Road in Isabella County and had headed north toward Farwell.

“Deputies were checking the area of Red’s Oakridge Gas Station and Oakridge subdivision when (they) located the vehicle,” sheriff’s officials said in a press release. “The vehicle had driven through a yard behind Oakridge Gas Station, at which time a female jumped out of the vehicle and began to run.”

Then the driver drove west on Ludington Drive at a high rate of speed, attempted to turn into the parking lot of the Lake Truck Stop, drove through a ditch and then into a snow bank.

As one of the deputies entered the parking area, the driver in the stolen vehicle put it in reverse and rammed the patrol car.

He took off again and headed north on Gibson, drove through a farm field, turned around and tried driving through another section of the farm field where the vehicle got stuck.

The driver, a 29-year-old Lake man, was quickly arrested as he tried to flee on foot.

As it turns out, the Denali the man was driving had been stolen earlier in the city of Mt. Pleasant.

Deputies checked a home in the Farwell area and found the vehicle that had been stolen in out-county Isabella and that had prompted the chase.

The driver is in the Clare County Jail pending review of charges by the Clare County Prosecutor’s Office.