It seemed to be a sort of unending and unsanctioned low- or medium-speed tour over an erratic route through parts of eastern Montgomery County and northwestern Prince George’s.
The chase started with a crash, according to an account provided by the state police. The event that touched things off, as police told it, was a multi-car crash on the inner loop of the Capital Beltway at the Greenbelt Metro station.
One of the drivers left the Beltway crash scene, police said. His vehicle drove into a park-and-ride lot where it left the road and struck a guardrail.
The tow truck, part of the highway administration’s CHART program, arrived to help.
But according to the state police account, the driver may have wanted the truck itself more than any help it could provide. He took it, police said, and drove away, setting off the televised chase.
As a TV helicopter followed from the air, the truck, a bright yellow vehicle intended to help motorists out of difficulties, instead created them.
It banged into cars and delayed and impeded traffic in other ways as it followed a zig-zagging, direction-reversing course.
On a couple of occasions, things seemed at last to be over, with the police closing in. But the driver mounted the curb and seemingly discovering a dirt path between wooded patches, made his temporary escape.
As the pursuit continued, minute by minute, on roads often in heavy use by other vehicles, suspense seemed to mount, raising questions about how long it could continue.
Eventually it appeared the driver would be blocked, by dead-end streets, or by other traffic, ahead or nearby.
But at key moments in the pursuit, just as it appeared all over for the driver, he used what was presumably the tow truck’s greater weight to push, shove and sideswipe other vehicles out of his way.
All the banging and bumping and swerving and curb jumping may have come at a cost, however. During the later moments of the chase, sparks seemed to come from the bottom of the tow truck. And it seemed that the truck ultimately became disabled, police said.
Maryland State Police and Montgomery County Police captured the suspect at about 6:30 p.m. in the 10700 block of Columbia Pike in Silver Spring, the state police said.
In a statement issued hours afterward, the state police said the tow truck driver was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries. They said he had not yet been positively identified.
Preliminary investigation indicated, the state police said, that 13 vehicles were struck. A state trooper and a Montgomery County police officer were taken to hospitals for treatment, along with a civilian, the police said.
They said they were continuing to investigate.
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