Driver flees traffic stop, flips SUV in Miller Place, cops say

Suffolk County police investigate the scene where an SUV crashed into a wooden area and the driver fled on foot late Thursday night, April 28, 2016. Credit: Chris Sabella
Suffolk County police said they are looking for a man who fled a traffic stop and then overturned his sport utility vehicle in Miller Place early Friday.
Police said they actively searched a wooded area near North Country Road and Rolling Avenue for several hours after the suspect crashed his 1991 GMC Suburban shortly after midnight, then ran off.
Police said later Friday morning that they no longer were actively searching the area but know the suspect’s identity.
The incident began at about 11:35 p.m. Thursday when an officer pulled over a driver in a Suburban at Route 25A and Patchogue Avenue in Rocky Point.
The driver fled the scene, and the officer initiated “a very brief pursuit,” police said in a statement, before he ended it for “public safety reasons.”
Later, police responded to a crash in a wooded area at North Country Road and Rolling Road, less than two miles from the original traffic stop. Police said they determined that the man who fled the traffic stop and the man who crashed the Suburban were the same.
Officers from the Sixth and Seventh precincts and Canine and Aviation sections then conducted an “extensive” search, which included the use of a department helicopter, police said.
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