A five-county police pursuit that ended in Montgomery County on Tuesday included confrontations with officers, maneuvering through oncoming traffic and avoiding pursuit intervention devices, according to the Noblesville Police Department.
The suspect, identified as Edward L. Albright Jr., 45, of Noblesville, was pronounced dead at the scene Tuesday after the 70-mile, high-speed chase ended in a fatal crash as he attempted to exit Interstate 74 at State Road 32 east of Crawfordsville.
Albright collided with a passenger vehicle and a semi-trailer stopped on the westbound exit ramp, driven by 76-year-old Chester Leatherman of Russellville and Jerry Hayes, 41, of Marion, Michigan, respectively.
Leatherman was taken to Franciscan Health for non-life threatening injuries. Hayes was not injured.
The pursuit began when Noblesville Police officers responded to a distress call from an off-duty NPD officer at an apartment complex, located at 14199 Blanket Flower Lane in Noblesville.
The off-duty officer was with her father when she was flagged down to assist with a disturbance involving Albright and a female individual. The officer and her father exited the vehicle in attempts to resolve the confrontation.
In doing so, Albright managed to gain entry to the police vehicle and drive away after allegedly battering both the officer and her father and spraying them with “chemical spray.”
Albright then fled the scene in the police vehicle and confronted the driver of a 2006 Toyota Avalon in the parking lot of a Sherwin-Williams Paint Store on Britton Park Road in Fishers. He allegedly pulled the driver from the vehicle and drove against oncoming traffic on 141st Street before heading south on State Road 37.
Responding officers in the area gave chase and attempted to stop Albright with emergency lights, sirens and pursuit intervention devices. According to police, Albright “maneuvered around all of them.”
The pursuit traveled south on State Road 37 before continuing south onto Interstate 69, west on Interstate 465 and west on I-74. Albright led the pursuit west on I-74 with speeds in excess of 120 mph, according to scanner traffic, before attempting to exit the interstate at State Road 32.
The off-duty officer and her father were treated at Riverview Health (Noblesville) and were later released. The owner of the Toyota was released at the scene.
