Multi-Jurisdictional Pursuit Ends With Arrest of Md. Man

A 25-year-old Temple Hills man has been charged after a Northern Virginia police chase yesterday morning in which he crashed into a Metrobus on an Interstate 395 ramp and carjacked another vehicle before troopers forced his vehicle to stop at Reagan National Airport, Virginia State Police said.

Gerald L. McCall received minor injuries when police forced his vehicle into a concrete barrier at the airport to end the chase. State police charged him with two counts of hit and run, auto larceny and assault on a police officer. Alexandria police said carjacking and attempted carjacking charges are pending.

No one else was injured during the pursuit, which lasted about 20 minutes and resulted in several crashes, state police said in a statement. Traffic was snarled, and parts of a ramp onto northbound Interstate 395 and an airport exit road were blocked at times. Arlington County police and U.S. Park Police officers assisted state troopers in their pursuit.

State police said the incident began about 8 a.m., when Troopers Shean G. Baldwin and Jason E. Chandler were patrolling the HOV lane of I-395 at the on-ramp from Edsall Road in Fairfax County. A green pickup truck that was driving up the ramp stopped and tried to back down it but was blocked by oncoming traffic, police said.

Baldwin told the driver to pull over and asked to see his driver's license, said Detective Crystal Nosal, a spokeswoman for Arlington police. The driver replied that he did not have one. When the troopers ordered him out of his truck, he drove off onto the HOV lane of I-395.

Police gave chase and also checked the license plate number for the truck. State police said the pickup had been reported stolen in Alexandria in August.

The driver tried to exit I-395 at Shirlington Road but collided with another vehicle and a state police car. The impact sent the pickup into a spin, state police said. The driver then put the truck in reverse and headed backward up the exit ramp, where he crashed into a Metrobus.

"The driver bailed out," Nosal said, ran down the exit ramp and tried without success to commandeer a vehicle. State police said the man then ran into a nearby neighborhood and was spotted by police a short time later driving another stolen vehicle.

The pursuit resumed with the man driving south on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, state police said.

After passing Reagan National Airport, the vehicle made a U-turn across the parkway's grass median and headed north, police said, then crossed over a bicycle path and up an embankment to enter the airport.

Police followed the vehicle onto the departures ramp and past the curbside check-in for the US Airways shuttle.

At that point, Nosal said, state police executed a tactic known as a "PIT maneuver," driving up alongside the fleeing vehicle and bumping into it until the vehicle spun out of control into a security barrier and was forced to stop. The driver exited the vehicle and tried to run but was apprehended, Nosal said. He was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries, and then was taken to the Alexandria jail.