At approximately 11:47 a.m. on February 23, TFC W. Shelton, of the Maryland State Police, La Plata Barrack, in Charles County, conducted a traffic stop on northbound Route 5 at Substation Road on a black Toyota for a speeding violation.
As TFC Shelton approached the stopped vehicle, he recognized that the vehicle matched the description of a Toyota given in an earlier lookout for a suspect vehicle involved in several burglaries that Charles County Sheriff’s Office was currently investigating.
The operator of the vehicle accelerated from the shoulder and a chase ensued. The chase covered a distance of 12 miles where the operator of the vehicle violated numerous traffic laws. The pursuit ended at U.S. Route 301 and Frank Tippett Road, Cheltenham, Prince George’s County, where the operator failed to negotiate a turn and crashed.
The driver, James Ralph Walker, 26 years of Forestville, Maryland was arrested and a search of the vehicle incident to the arrest revealed the stolen property from the aforementioned burglaries at which time the passenger, Lawrence Kurtell White, 21 years of Oxon Hill, Maryland was also arrested.
The arrest recovered the stolen property of ten victims of burglaries to their automobiles.