The Maryland State Police have released dashboard camera footage of a high-speed chase on Interstate 95 which occurred in February 2011, and ended only when a trooper rammed his vehicle into the suspect’s car.
The Dagger initially requested the video shortly after the incident, but its release was delayed until the judicial process was completed and approval was obtained at various levels of Maryland State Police command, including Superintendent Marcus Brown.
According to Maryland State Police, the chase occurred Feb. 8, 2011 after federal marshals issued a lookout for a silver Ford Taurus with Virginia plates in the Harford area. The vehicle was driven by Brandon L. Pegram, 23, of Stoney Creek, Va., who was believed to be armed. Police said Pegram had held his family hostage the previous day, and threatened to harm any police officers who attempted to capture him.
Harford County Sheriff’s deputies spotted Pegram’s vehicle at approximately 2:47 p.m. on Route 40 at Gateway Drive, and attempted to initiate a traffic stop, Harford County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Monica Worrell said.
Pegram fled, traveling south on Route 40 toward Baltimore County before turning onto White Marsh Boulevard and I-95, heading north back to Harford County. The chase, which averaged a speed of approximately 100 mph, ended after Pegram attempted to ram citizen vehicles and nearly struck two sheriff’s deputies. Police said Pegram attempted to hit one of the officers by driving his vehicle directly at the deputy, who dived out of the way.
At that time, Maryland State Police Sgt. Mark Yingling executed a “PIT maneuver,” ramming Pegram’s car into the guardrail—-visible in the far right side of the frame at approximately the 9:10 mark of the video.
The video released to The Dagger follows, and this story continues below. The video, shot from the vehicle of Trooper First Class Jonathan Novack, picks up as the pursuit turns off of Route 40 and onto White Marsh Boulevard. Pegram’s vehicle is a light green Ford Taurus, visible ahead of the lead vehicle in the pursuit, a Harford County Sheriff’s Office unit.
Pegram resisted arrest, according to state police, and was taken into custody after sustaining minor injuries. He faced a bevy of charges for his actions both in Virginia and during the chase, including robbery, kidnapping, and assault, among others. In Maryland, he was found guilty of second degree assault, reckless endangerment, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and resisting arrest, and was sentenced to five years in prison.
For his actions, Yingling was awarded the Superintendent’s Citation for Heroism, one of the agency’s highest awards.
Harford County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Monica Worrell could not immediately identify the deputy involved in the pursuit, or any special recognition they may have received for their role in the chase. The Dagger also sought dashboard footage from the cameras of the 11 Sheriff’s Office units involved in the chase; Worrell said agency’s standard records department cost to transfer such footage to DVD is $75 per unit, or $825 for all vehicles, and said it was unclear what portions of the pursuit the footage might show.
Some of the procedures, terms, and events which occurred at various times of the video include:
1:17: A “10-80” refers to a high-speed pursuit. The Sheriff’s Office and state police maintain different guidelines for how a pursuit can be initiated, maintained, and ended (the Sheriff’s Office guidelines, dating to June 2004, can be found at the end of this story). In this case, the Sheriff’s Office vehicle had been the lead vehicle in the pursuit, and remained so when the chase went onto I-95.
Attempting to “switch” positions with a state police vehicle would have been impractical as the speed of the chase increased, according to Sgt. Ian Loughran, an instructor for the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Vehicle Operator Course training. Driving tactics are taught during academy training and at various times each year, he said, and the deputy’s actions in the pursuit complied with department regulations and policies.
As the second vehicle in the pursuit, Novack regularly communicated the status and location of the chase, while the sheriff’s deputy focused on staying with Pegram’s vehicle.
2:14: A “10-55” refers to a suspected drunk driver.
2:45: “Stop sticks” are tire deflation devices employed by many police agencies to stop oncoming vehicles.
3:04: “10-3” is an order to other units to stop transmitting on a particular channel.
3:46: Pegram’s vehicle strikes a civilian car, but avoids causing a major accident amid particularly dense traffic.
4:18: A felony stop involves a set of procedures used in a traffic stop of a particularly dangerous individual. During a felony stop, Maryland State Police Bel Air Barrack commander Lt. Charles Moore said a trooper will use their car’s public address system to give a driver specific instructions to roll down their window, show their hands, exit the vehicle, walk toward the trooper’s car, and lie on the ground.
But as shown at the end of the video, real-life scenarios aren’t always so controlled.
“It didn’t work out that way, we had to ram him,” Moore said. “It’s usually 50/50 on whether that [felony stop procedures] works out.
4:58: A voice in the background of radio traffic asks whether any Marshals are in the area; it was the U.S. Marshals Service which had initially put out an alert on Pegram.
5:20: As the pursuit passes exit 74, the first exit since Pegram went onto I-95, Yingling’s vehicle joins the chase. Yingling, who Moore said is a driving instructor, becomes the lead car in pursuit—visible as a pair of lights entering the roadway from the right side. At this exit, and at the on-ramp at exit 77, other police units can be seen stopping traffic from entering the highway.
8:57: Pegram attempts to hit Sheriff’s Office deputies trying to deploy stop sticks. The state police detailed his actions in their official release about the incident:
Two sheriff’s deputies were on foot after deploying stop sticks. Pegram nearly struck the first deputy, then lost control and traveled across I-95 [to the right of the video], nearly striking the second deputy. The suspect then appeared to deliberately drive his car directly at the second deputy, who was able to dive out of the way before being hit.
The deputy can be seen at the far left of the screen, as a dark blur at the top of a small embankment near the guardrail as Novack’s vehicle passes.
9:10-9:14: According to Moore, Yingling sees a chance to bring the pursuit to an end after Pegram displayed deadly force, and cuts his car to the right, executing a PIT maneuver on Pegram’s vehicle.
9:27: Novack pulls his vehicle over, and as he opens his door, the sounds of all the pursuing vehicles can be heard.
That was a very dangerous chase, but necessary given the volatile nature of the criminal. Thanks for posting, Dagger!
Outstanding and I feel good that those who do the job are professional and well trained – thank you for what you do everyday.
Outstanding job by all Agencies involved. Dangerous pursuit yes. The EVOC training taught to these Officers I believe is the best. The only one out of control here was the bad guy. Tfc. Novak was calm and did a great job as secondary. Again, outstanding job by our very brave brothers and sisters. Be safe people.
E V O C Emergency Vehicle Operator Course.
This video will be a teaching aid for future classes.
Marc Eaton EVOC Instructor.
Wow, what an amazing job by all involved taking a dangerous individual into custody. It brought back a lot of memories for me and makes me grateful for the many skilled EVOC instructors (and yes, including Marc Eaton who is an incredible EVOC instructor no matter what his political views are) who trained these amazing deputies and troopers. We need to be thankful every day for the service of the law enforcement officers in our community. It is hard for the public to imagine what the officers go through during their training and during an actual pursuit. There are so many variables involved that could in the end make the difference between life, death, or serious injury. God bless all of you and please stay safe my brothers and sisters.
Awesome video. It is just a thin blue line between the bad guys and the rest of us. Thank goodness some folks are willing to serve and protect. To them, thank you.
The female dispatcher sounded like an idiot. She gave the wrong information several times, and mistakenly TWICE gave wrong the direction of the chase as Southbound. When the officer “No, it’s Northbound”, she said “now Northbound on 95”. The entire chase was Northbound. It was never Southbound. Then when they passed and correctly reported that the chase had just passed Rt. 24, she said “now Northbound on 24”, instead of saying the chase was still on I-95, but just passing 24. Does she still have a job?
She does…she’s a prime reason I don’t scan MSP’s channel when I’m working
Thank you…. I thought I was the only one that noticed that. I have been on both sides of this situation and know how hard both are. But, by this time we hope dispatchers are “professionals” Most of them are thankfully.
THIN BLUE LINE! Good job Brothers and Sisters.
A miracle no one was hurt. Are there areas in the state where high speed pursuits are not used? baltimore city? amazing how calm the policeman on the radio with dispatch remained. they don’t make enough.
That was SCAREY !!!!!!! I appreciate our police and pray for them everyday. Just a question—-these chases are dangerous, esp. for the officers. I grew up in the 50s-60s timeframe and I remember when the police would call ahead to other districts so that they could block areas so the police would not have to have these high speed chases and risk their lives. Why does that not happen now ??? Their jobs are dangerous enough. One more question—I thought it was mandatory that when you heard the sirens, you pull over and get out of the way. It was surprising how many times the police cars had to go on the shoulders of the road. I thank the Lord everyday for people that are willing to do these jobs as police officers, emergency workers, miitary, etc.
Hi Sally–some of the cops on here will be able to far better answer your questions, but I’ll take a first shot at it:
To your point about calling ahead, keep in mind that this chase was interesting because it took place on one of the longest uninterrupted stretches of I-95 in the state (there’s one in Cecil that I think is longer). There wasn’t a good chance to put anything new ahead of the pursuit until Exit 74, which is where Sgt. Yingling joins in.
Other units seemed to be heading south on 95 to try and find a place to turn around and get ahead of it–at one point you can see a police SUV making a U-turn as Novack speeds by. But the whole thing, start to finish on 95, took about eight minutes, which doesn’t seem like much time to get into position.
Also, you can hear the radio traffic and the police do set something up ahead of the pursuit, the deputies with stop sticks. But that’s perilous in its own right, as two deputies were nearly struck. Personally, I think these incidents are going to be ridiculously dangerous no matter how you play it–you’re trying to stop a 2,000+ lb. piece of metal going 100 mph that doesn’t want to be stopped.
To your point about not hearing the sirens: I should add this to the story, but Sgt. Loughran mentioned that at speeds above 60 mph or so, other drivers can’t hear the siren coming up behind them very well. Hopefully some of our commentors who are in law enforcement can speak to that.
Thanks for reading!
Several things made this an unusually challenging pursuit (which was handled superbly by everyone involved.)
It started in Harford County, crossed into Baltimore County, then crossed back into Harford County on I-95, which as Aaron pointed out is a very long stretch of interstate with no way to get on or off….7 miles from the White March to Joppa exits. That brings a host of communication problems as every agency is on a different channel and not all the agencies potentially involved in this can directly communicate with each other. This involved (or could’ve involved involved if it had continued) HCSO Southern and Northern Precincts, MSP Bel Air, MSP JFK, MSP Golden Ring (had it continued south), Baltimore County PD, and if it had continued further north, Aberdeen PD, Havre de Grace PD, and had it crossed the bridge, MdTA Police, Cecil County Sheriff’s Office, all of the municipal departments in Cecil County, and MSP Northeast. Every one of those is on a different channel, and no one in any of those agencies can talk directly to all the others.
Traffic on I-95 was obviously pretty heavy and under ideal conditions everyone should move over. However, the lead car in this pursuit is the bad guy and he’s obviously not running lights and sirens and is weaving in and out of traffic all over the interstate and onto the shoulders with a lot of police right behind him. In this particular situation had people tried to move into the shoulder it most likely would’ve caused several serious crashes (including possible fatalities for the officers or civilians involved.)
Lights and sirens really don’t carry as far as most people think they do. When you’re in your house with the windows open you can hear those sirens from a long way off and if it’s dark you see the lights from a long way off (if you don’t also have headlights in your face.) During the day at highway speeds, I doubt anyone on 95 even knew it was coming until the first patrol car goes by. Once you hit speeds of about 60-65 mph you don’t really hear the siren until they’re almost on top of you (and this got up to 100+ mph so I’m sure a lot of people didn’t hear the siren until the officers were passing them.)
This pursuit covered a lot of ground, but with it looping around, changing jurisdictions, etc there really wasn’t time to set much up. I’m impressed anyone was even able to get into a position to use stop sticks and those deputies nearly got run over. In the 50’s and 60’s they could set up roadblocks and completely shut down the roads. Today, we’re not allowed to do that except maybe in the most extreme circumstances and setting one up on I-95 with the traffic probably would’ve just resulted in a lot of crashes. Once they hit Exit 74 traffic was blocked from coming on and it thins out significantly.
TFC Yingling did a textbook perfect PIT maneuver and ended this chase before someone was killed and was very deserving of his award.
By the time it reached that point I don’t think he would’ve been able to get away anyway unless he’s managed to turn around at a crossover and head south (or even worse get on the southbound side and keep heading north, but that probably would’ve ended in a head on crash with multiple fatalities.) I would figure by that time APD had exit 85 covered with stop sticks and HdPD had exit 89 covered. The next thing he’d get to after that would’ve been the toll plaza in Cecil County and he probably would’ve wrecked there (or been spiked.) Even though he probably wouldn’t have gotten away, the chase needed to be ended as quickly as possible given that he tried to run over 2 deputies and struck a couple cars as he passed them. At that point it was only a matter of time before a crash happened and someone was seriously injured or killed. Thankfully no innocent civilians or officers were injured.
Kudos to everyone involved. Based on this video and what I’ve heard from people involved with this pursuit there’s not any way it could’ve been handled better.
Over a decade after 9/11, a gazillion dollars allocated to local law enforcement via DHS, Frequencies re-allocated by the FCC, and we STILL don’t have the ability to all monitor the same channel???
At least we have urban attack vehicles, a fleet of mobile homes, and air craft including drones!
Technically there are ways to do so statewide, but it’s not particularly easy to switch to the proper channel especially while in the middle of a 100 mph pursuit in relatively heavy traffic. It’s not simply a matter of turning a knob a couple clicks or flipping a switch on the radio.
There have also been changes made recently that are supposed to make it easier to switch over.
The Deputy driving the Sheriff’s vehicle was DFC D. Crites
I thought that was Crites. He drives the same way on the golf course!!
Dfc. Crites is a good cop. Donnie you do a great job in this pursuit, good job Deputy.
I remember listening to that entire chase from start to finish. It had this old fella’ sitting on the edge of my chair rooting for the Deputies and Troopers, with a satisfying “YES” at the end! The Deputies and Troopers should all receive medals for doing their job in the absolute best order possible.
Some people complain about the law enforcement officers in Harford County but, I can tell you from personal experience that we, without a doubt, have some of the best law enforcement officers in the nation.
How many of you would put your life on the line at any given time for $45,000 +/- per year salary? Or, when I started at the Sheriff’s Office for $6,000 per year in 1970? Not many, I would think.
Congratulations to everyone involved. I’m so glad that you went home safe.
Monster, I reached out to you so we could talk. No email yet or a phone call. You call me names but will not contact me, why is that? COWARD.
Why would the Sheriff’s Office pursuit policy be released for the public to view? Why give the bad guys a copy of your play book? You have now given them what they need to elude your people in the event of a pursuit. Yet another great decision by Sheriff L. Jesse Bane. That 37 years of riding a desk is starting to show Bane.
Hell of a job. I remember this very well. I was on the other end of the radio working the 10-80 for HCSO on A1. Excellent job to everyone involved. Nice Job 546!!!
Hey, just an FYI, This guy ended up getting 5 years in May of 2011. He’s in the western md facility.