Driver Escapes After High-Speed Chase Through Tulsa Neighborhood

A driver who led Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers on a high-speed chase got away after crashing his truck through a Tulsa home's fence early Friday. 

Troopers tried to stop a pickup pulling a trailer carrying two motorbikes on I-244 at Harvard at about 1:30 a.m. OHP said the trailer was dragging a chain causing a trail of sparks. 

The driver sped away eventually getting off the highway and into a north Tulsa neighborhood. Troopers said the truck was going as fast as 70 mph through the neighborhood. The truck finally stopped after crashing through a fence at the corner of Independence and North Oxford.

The OHP says the driver ran away and even with the help of the Tulsa Police Department's helicopter they couldn't find him. They say they know who he is.

Troopers questioned a woman in the truck then released her. They said they found a loaded handgun under the front seat. They don't know why the man didn't stop when they attempted to pull him over.

Homeowner Victor Lafayette wasn't sure what was going on at first.

"It was shocking really to see something like that," Lafayette said.

What is now a mangled mess of chain link fence belongs to him.

He's lived near I-244 and Sheridan since the late 60s and has constantly been making improvements since then, doing most of the work himself.

That work included putting up that fence.

"I try to take care of the place so people can see something nice when they drive by here,” he said. “And now I wake up to something like this because of the irresponsibility of people."

The trooper told Lafayette it appears the driver didn't have insurance, and now Lafayette is stuck with the bill.

Fortunately, it was just the fence that took the worst of it, and not his wife and him inside.

"It could have been worse he could have plowed right into my house. If he'd been going faster, we could have got injured."

And there was a passenger in the wrecked truck, who wasn't hurt.

She was questioned and released. Lafayette had a talk with her.

"That young lady, she kind of apologized last night a little bit to me, and I told her 'just think, I says, you could have got killed.”