Scranton police arrested two men following foot pursuits early Saturday, after officers attempted to stop them for traffic-related violations in downtown, the department said in a release.<\/p>\n
Just after midnight, officers spotted two men, later identified as Chase Tapper and Matthew Fialkowski, illegally crossing Mulberry Street and quickly running across the crosswalk.<\/p>\n
Officers noted one of the men was wearing a sweatshirt although the temperature was 80 degrees.<\/p>\n
Police followed the pair southbound onto North Washington Avenue and then onto Wyoming Avenue, noting the two began running and again failed to use a crosswalk.<\/p>\n
Officers found the men at a Mulberry Street parking lot. Officer Nicholas Brett exited his patrol vehicle and ordered the men to stop.<\/p>\n
Instead, both men ran toward Linden Street. Officers caught up with them at 200 Linden Street, noting it was a well-lit area.<\/p>\n
The men then fled for a second time.<\/p>\n
Tapper, 37, of Philadelphia, fell to the ground as he was running and officers were able to take him into custody.<\/p>\n
Officers soon caught up with Fialkowski on Linden Street and also took him into custody.<\/p>\n
During a search of Tapper, officers recovered 60 grams of marijuana packaged for distribution, in addition to 474 Xanax pills, drug paraphernalia and other drug-related items consistent with narcotics trafficking, police said.<\/p>\n
Tapper faces charges of intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, evading arrest, resisting arrest and obstructing justice.<\/p>\n
Following Fialkowski\u2019s apprehension, officers recovered a discarded Taurus 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine.<\/p>\n
Fialkowski, 37, of Scranton, is legally prohibited from having a firearm due to prior convictions and admitted it was his, police said.<\/p>\n
He is charged with illegally possessing a handgun, carrying a handgun without a license, evading arrest, resisting arrest and tampering with evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe investigation remains ongoing, and additional investigative steps, including search warrants, are being pursued,\u201d Scranton police said in a release.<\/p>\n
Both men remain in Lackawanna County Prison, Tapper in lieu of $100,000 bail and Fialkowski in lieu of $150,000 bail.<\/p>\n
The men have preliminary hearings scheduled for 9 a.m. on July 9 before District Judge Paul Ware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scranton police arrested two men following foot pursuits early Saturday, after officers attempted to stop them for traffic-related…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-232926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}