BAY VIEW – Cecil County Sheriff’s Office deputies captured a suspect on Wednesday after he crashed a car in Bay View – ending a police chase that started in Harford County and involved a surveilling helicopter crew.
The single-vehicle crash occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m. Wednesday on Theodore Road, a short distance away from Joseph Biggs Memorial Highway (Route 274), when the car driven by the suspect – Gregory Wade Necker, 49, of Forest Hill — ran off the right side of the road, went down a ditch and came to rest in thick brush.
“Our deputies had placed stop-sticks on the road in the area of Theodore Road and Biggs Highway. When the suspect tried to avoid them, he swerved and went off the road,” outlined Lt. Michael Holmes, a CCSO spokesman.
At that point, CCSO deputies captured Necker, who was not injured in the crash, reported Holmes.
CCSO was assisting Harford County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Baltimore County Police Department officers when they chased the suspect and later nabbed him, Holmes noted.
“He had just done a residential burglary,” Holmes commented.
HCSO deputies and BCPD officers started chasing Necker after he allegedly burglarized a Harford County home earlier that day and later, ignoring the flashing emergency lights on the pursuing law enforcement vehicles, continued driving into Cecil County, police said.
BCPD officers were involved in the pursuit because of their interest in Necker in an “active investigation they were working,” police added.
When Necker drove across the Conowingo Dam on U.S. 1 into Cecil County, deputies and officers with those agencies stopped chasing the suspect for jurisdictional reasons and contacted CCSO, according to Holmes.
A BCPD helicopter crew that had been monitoring the fleeing suspect from above, however, continued keeping aerial tabs on the wanted man as he drove throughout Cecil County, and it relayed geographic location updates to CCSO deputies, Holmes reported.
CCSO deputies started chasing the suspect car after spotting it near Charlestown, police said.
After moving from the Charlestown area, police added, the police chase went across West Pulaski Highway (Route 40) onto Red Toad Road near North East, before shifting onto Theodore Road – where the pursuit ended with the suspect crashing the car when swerving to dodge the stop-sticks.
The scene of the suspect’s crash and capture forced emergency workers to close a portion of Theodore Road for more than an hour.
After capturing Necker, CCSO deputies transferred custody of the suspect to HCSO investigators, police reported.
Necker is facing 10 criminal charges in Harford County, four of which are felonies, including first-degree burglary and third-degree burglary, according to Harford County District Court records.
He remained in the Harford County Detention Center on no bond Thursday, one day before his scheduled bail review hearing, court records show.
Necker likely will face charges in Cecil County, too.
“We have charges relating to the pursuit pending against him,” Holmes told the Cecil Whig.
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