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Man in custody after miles-long police pursuit

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State troopers look through the debris from a collision at Route 519 and Interstate 70 west ramp in Somerset Township Wednesday.

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A state trooper’s SUV and a pickup truck collided at Route 519 and Interstate 70 on-ramp in Somerset Township Wednesday.

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A state trooper pick up shoes and a bag from a collision at Route 519 and 70 west in Somerset Township Wednesday.

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State troopers pick up debris after a collision Wednesday in Somerset Township.

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A tow truck driver prepares to extract a pickup truck from a grassy culvert Wednesday after the truck collided with a state police SUV in Somerset Township.

A driver led state troopers over miles of busy interstate Wednesday afternoon – at one point driving the wrong way – before a crash with a state trooper in Somerset Township.

The pickup the man had been driving was flipped over in an onramp to the westbound lanes of Interstate 70, more than 12 miles east of where the chase began in South Strabane Township.

State police took the driver into custody following the crash.

An upright state police sport utility vehicle was nosing into the side of the overturned vehicle.

A trooper on scene referred all questions to an agency public information officer. Spokeswoman Melinda Bondarenka couldn’t be reached for comment.

Few details about the suspect or chain of events that led to the crash were available.

South Strabane police Chief Donald Zofchak said one of his officers pulled over the pickup near Strabane Square about 4 p.m. The pickup truck driver fled the traffic stop.

Zofchak wasn’t sure of the exact reason the officer initiated the stop but said he believed it “started out as minor traffic violations.”

The driver wound up heading east on I-70 with troopers in pursuit.

Don Jordan, 67, of Mt. Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, said he’d seen the suspect blow by him on the interstate.

“He went around me on the right,” Jordan said. “That’s when they threw the spike strips out, but they just missed him.”

Jordan said the suspect got off at the Dunningsville exit and got back on the eastbound lanes of I-70 but was driving west on the shoulder. “A friend of mine was going that direction. He said, ‘He passed me going the wrong way,” Jordan recalled. He added, “And three police cars.”

The suspect appeared to have exited again and tried to get on I-70 westbound before the crash.

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