An alleged drunken driver led law enforcement officers on a wild chase from Ukiah almost to Hopland and back again before being arrested while hiding in a vineyard Saturday night, according to police.
At about 9:45 p.m., a Ukiah police patrol officer spotted a red Dodge Ram pickup heading south on North State Street while allegedly traveling about 20 mph over the speed limit, police said Monday.
The officer, who was headed in the opposite direction on North State Street, flipped a U-turn, activated his lights and tried to catch up to the Dodge.
The truck’s driver, 34-year-old Willits resident Kolton Lindecarnes, allegedly refused to pull over.
Lindecarnes then allegedly turned onto eastbound Brush Street, then onto southbound North Orchard Avenue, then eastbound East Perkins Street before eventually driving through Talmage to Old River Road, according to police.
Lindecarnes nearly made it all the way to Hopland while allegedly speeding and weaving in and out of traffic before turning around and driving back the way he came.
By this point, the chase was joined by members of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol, who laid out a strip-spike device that flattened Lindecarnes’ tires near the intersection of Old River Road and Talmage Road.
He then allegedly came to a stop, jumped out of the truck and ran into a nearby vineyard in the 2000 block of Sanford Ranch Road, police said.
Lindecarnes was eventually found with the help of a drone using a thermal imaging camera and taken into custody “without incident,” according to police.
He was booked into Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence, reckless evading, evading in the opposite lane of traffic and driving without an interlock device.
According to jail records, Lindecarnes posted a $35,000 bond and was released Sunday evening.
I assert that the author of this article allegedly overuses the word allegedly to describe every single alleged event that allegedly occurred.