By Erica Beshears
The Charlotte Observer
CHARLOTTE — Police charged three men on Wednesday after a series of events that, authorities said, included the theft at gunpoint of a Huntersville public works truck and a high-speed chase from Cornelius to Charlotte.
Marquis Lamar Gaines, 17; Timothy Montae Hines, 18; and Steven Razelle Staples, 18, all of Charlotte, were arrested after the truck crashed on the Statesville Road bridge over Interstate 85 in Charlotte.
They face charges of armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, Huntersville police Capt. Michael Kee said.
No one was hurt in the chase, which started in the Caldwell Station neighborhood in late morning and continued along such busy roads as N.C. 115, Gilead Road, Interstate 77 and Statesville Road, reaching speeds of at least 80 mph.
Cornelius police, Huntersville police and the N.C. Highway Patrol were all involved in parts of the chase.
At about 10:30 a.m., a resident of the Monteith Park subdivision in Huntersville reported that three people approached her door and left when they saw her. She reported that they left in a gray Toyota 4Runner that police discovered had been stolen.
Police sent the description to other agencies, and Cornelius police spotted it in the Caldwell Station neighborhood a few miles to the north. The three people were outside a house, but got in the 4Runner when they saw police, according to a Huntersville police news release.
They fled when Cornelius police tried to stop the car, authorities said.
Huntersville police tried to stop the chase at N.C. 73 and N.C. 115 by placing spike strips in the road. The 4Runner nearly struck a Huntersville officer on foot as it went through the intersection, Kee said.
The spikes punctured a tire, but the vehicle kept going, turning onto Sherwood Drive. There, the men encountered a Huntersville landscaping crew. They stole the crew’s truck at gunpoint and continued down N.C. 115, pulling a trailer and a commercial lawn mower, police said.
Huntersville police called off the chase at the town’s jurisdiction line because officers thought it was against policy to continue chasing, Kee said.
Then the N.C. Highway Patrol took up the chase.
Copyright 2008 The Charlotte Observer