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A police chase at speeds up to 111 mph on Interstate 25 south of Santa Fe Wednesday morning ended with the suspect car running off the road and crashing down an embankment.
One of three people who ran from the silver Acura, which apparently was stolen, later was arrested after a resident of the gated Las Lagunitas development called to report that a man on the back porch was trying to get into the resident’s house.
The chase started about 6:45 a.m. when State Police officers Janice Madrid and Imelda Sanchez tried to make a traffic stop at Cerrillos Road and Calle Herrera, near the entrance to the new Walmart.
The officers had noticed front and rear seat passengers in the Acura were not wearing seat belts.
When Sanchez turned on her flashing lights and siren, the Acura ran through a red light and sped off to the south.
Now facing charges are Amber Salazar, 17, and Joseph Williams and Brandon Ledbetter, both 30.
Williams, of Albuquerque, the driver of the car that fled police, was wanted for warrants charging him with fraud, shoplifting and not having a driver’s license, and according to a national law enforcement database was to be considered armed and dangerous.
Salazar was caught quickly after the getaway car came to a stop on I-25′s west frontage road near Las Lagunitas. Williams was tracked down in the gated community.
It took another 90 minutes of searching by State Police and officers from the Santa Fe Police and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office – assisted by a State Police helicopter crew – before Ledbetter was caught by sheriff’s deputies following the report about someone trying to break into a house.
Ledbetter, of Parker, Colo., was wanted as an absconder from federal probation in Colorado.
Williams, Ledbetter and Salazar all are now charged with receiving or transferring a stolen car, aggravated fleeing and resisting arrest for Wednesday morning’s incident. Jail records show Lebetter also is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and not wearing a seatbelt.
