A traffic stop in San Patricio County turned into a 120 mph chase, with a driver going the wrong way\u2014while 3 children were in the car. <\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A high-speed chase across San Patricio County ended in Portland Saturday evening, and authorities say three children were inside the vehicle during the pursuit.<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the situation began as a routine traffic stop attempt just south of Taft along U.S. Highway 181. Troopers tried to pull over the driver for a violation, but the vehicle sped off, reaching speeds of more than 120 miles per hour.<\/p>\n
Investigators say the situation became even more critical when the trooper realized there were children in the backseat, including at least one who was not properly secured. That discovery forced troopers to adjust how they handled the chase.<\/p>\n
DPS says certain tactics that are typically used to stop a fleeing vehicle could not be used because of the risk to the children inside. Troopers instead continued to monitor and evaluate the situation as the pursuit moved across San Patricio County.<\/p>\n
The chase came to an end shortly before 6 p.m. at the Bridgepoint Apartments in Portland, where officers were able to safely stop the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Both the driver and passenger were arrested. Authorities have not yet released the full list of charges but say they are more serious than the original violation that led to the attempted traffic stop.<\/p>\n
The three children were not injured and were released to family members.<\/p>\n
Officials say pursuits like this require constant decision-making in real time, weighing the need to stop a suspect against the potential danger to the public.<\/p>\n
Portland police say they only assisted during the final moments of the chase, but emphasized that every pursuit depends on factors like traffic conditions, time of day, and the nature of the offense.<\/p>\n
DPS says the outcome could have been far worse and noted that if the driver had pulled over, the situation likely would have ended with a warning or minor citations instead of arrests and serious charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A traffic stop in San Patricio County turned into a 120 mph chase, with a driver going the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-228362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}