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PRICE — Authorities have released video of a high-speed chase that ended when a car went off U.S. 6, crashed into an unoccupied house and started a fire, killing two men in the car.
The video was shot early Friday morning by cameras mounted in two Carbon County sheriff's patrol cars and a Helper police car. It was released by the sheriff's office Monday in response to a public records request.
One of the videos shows a sheriff's deputy and the driver of a black Dodge Magnum going nearly bumper to bumper as the deputy arrives at Price restaurant just after 1 a.m. Friday to investigate a report of a fight in progress. The driver of the black car noses past the patrol car and is out of sight in the seconds it takes the deputy to turn his car around.
The deputy, believing the two people in the car may have been involved in the fight, went after the car, Carbon County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Tom Stefanoff said. He wasn't able to find the Dodge, but he put out a radio call with a description of the vehicle to other officers in the area.
Minutes later, a Helper police officer whose shift had just ended spotted a black Dodge Magnum traveling at 120 mph on U.S. 6., Stefanoff said. The officer began to chase the car, passing a Carbon County sheriff's deputy whose dash-mounted camera recorded the Dodge as it sped by.
Stefanoff said the Helper officer and the second deputy continued to pursue the car, but lost sight of it a short time later. When they spotted a cloud of dust near the Poplar Street exit in Helper, the officers went to check it out.
Get me fire and medical now. Get every available unit up here now!
–Deputy Mike Adams
The video from the second deputy's car shows police walking along the Poplar Street overpass looking for the car and searching the nearby neighborhood before spotting flames coming from River Street, where they found the car and an unoccupied house on fire.
"Get me fire and medical now," deputy Mike Adams tells dispatchers on the video. "Get every available unit up here now!"
As firefighters responded, officers continued to search the area for the two men they'd been chasing. Authorities didn't know the men were still in the car until the fire had been put out and the car had been pulled from the house, Stefanoff said Monday.
The men's bodies were sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office for identification. One man had been identified Monday, but Stefanoff declined to release his name until the second man's identity had been confirmed through an examination of dental records and his family had been notified.
Stefanoff said investigators still do not know what may have motivated the driver to run from police.
