NORTH BAY VILLAGE, Fla. — A North Bay Village man is facing a felony charge after police said he led officers on a multi-island high-speed pursuit in a Ford Mustang early Friday morning.
An arrest report from the North Bay Village Police Department states that it began at around 2 a.m. after officers saw Alexander Neil Lawrence, 31, making “multiple erratic U-turns near an active construction zone where workers and police officers were present” near Hispanola Avenue on Treasure Island.
He then “accelerated away at high speed,” police said.
“I attempted to obtain the tag information and conduct a traffic stop,“ NBVPD Officer Branden Stephens wrote in the report. ”My police cruiser’s stand-by lights were activated, at which point the vehicle continued to accelerate away in an apparent attempt to bait a pursuit.”
Stephens wrote that while traveling 75 to 85 mph on the causeway to try to close the distance, Lawrence “was still maintaining a significant distance ahead of me.”
Authorities said Lawrence drove west on the causeway onto North Bay and Harbor islands and then drove out of the city towards the island containing Pelican Harbor Marina.
According to the report, Lawrence soon came back into North Bay Village and “continued toward the construction site, while almost striking the rear end of another marked police vehicle.”
Police tried to pursue it again, it states. But authorities said Lawrence drove away “at high speeds” and ran red lights at Hispanola Avenue, Adventure Avenue and Larry Paskow Way.
Authorities said a short time later, an anonymous caller to police reported that Lawrence had pulled into the Shell gas station at 1345 John F. Kennedy Causeway.
Police said they approached Lawrence as he walked away from the vehicle and he acknowledged being the driver.
Stephens wrote that during a pass of the vehicle conducted because of Lawrence’s “erratic behavior and dilated pupils,“ his K-9 dog, Atlas, ”showed interest in the interior," indicating the possibility of drugs inside, but police said they did not find any.
Police noted that the Mustang was “hot to the touch and emitting fumes from the high performance and velocity it exhibited” and arrested the Toronto-born Lawrence on a charge of fleeing and eluding at high speed and a traffic charge for reckless driving.
As of Friday afternoon, Lawrence was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with a bond listed as “to be set” in Miami-Dade jail records.
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