A high-speed chase on Interstate 35 that started early Saturday in Carlton County ended in the yard of a West Duluth hotel a few minutes later.
The pursuit - which reached speeds exceeding 100 mph - started at about 1:45 a.m. on I-35 near the Esko exit when a Carlton County sheriff's deputy saw a Ford pickup truck without a passenger-side headlight that also was weaving and making abrupt movements.
Carlton County Sheriff Kelly Lake said the deputy tried to pull the pickup over but the driver fled at a high rate of speed toward Duluth. Lake said officers from the Minnesota State Patrol and Duluth Police Department then took the lead in the chase inside the city limits.
The truck exited I-35 at Cody Street and proceeded down several residential streets - running through stoplights and stop signs at Grand Avenue twice - before being pushed off the road by a state trooper using his squad car to perform a so-called PIT maneuver, ramming the truck to the side, according to the State Patrol report.
The truck came to a stop on the lawn of the Comfort Inn near 40th Avenue West and Michigan Street.
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The driver, a 37-year-old Red Lake, Minn., man, was arrested at the scene. He remained in the St. Louis County Jail on Monday on preliminary charges, including a felony charge of fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle and five misdemeanor charges, including reckless driving, operating under the influence and possessing an open container of an alcoholic beverage.
