A Florida man eluding police in Southold, N.Y., led cops on a 45-minute, high-speed chase before plunging over a 100-foot cliff into Long Island Sound — and living to tell the judge.
After diving in after him and plucking him from the vehicle that landed in 3 to 5 feet of water, police arrested Roger Foster, 56, of The Villages in Florida.
Foster was charged with second-degree criminal contempt, third-degree criminal mischief, an array of traffic-law violations and unlawful fleeing, on top of the two outstanding warrants already issued for his arrest, police in the Eastern Long Island town said.
The incident began unfolding at 10:57 a.m. when Southold Town Police responded to a report that Foster had slashed his ex-partner’s tires in the parking lot of the Town Hall Annex. Foster took off as an officer was pulling him over, and a high-speed chase ensued involving three cruisers and a helicopter.
“Usually pursuits last for 10, 15 minutes until somebody either bails or get stopped or arrested, but this carried on for a good 40, 45 minutes,” Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley told the Daily News by phone on Wednesday, describing how Foster zig-zagged between Southold’s jurisdiction and neighboring Riverhead, “making U-turns, going down side streets.”
Ultimately the car headed east on a road in Greenport that everyone, including Foster, knew ended in a drop to the beach.
“We had him at speeds of 110 mph,” Flatley said. “He grew up around here at the end of the North Fork. He knew what was at the end of that road. He never touched the brakes, never did anything, went through the guardrail.”
Hitting a little embankment launched him into the air. The car sailed off the bluff “onto the beach below, then rolled or bounced into the Sound,” Flatley said.
Footage from the scene at 67 Steps Beach showed the banged-up vehicle in the water, then being towed back up the steep bluff.
“Officers on scene rushed down the stairs to the vehicle which was partially submerged,” Southold police said in a statement. “Officers broke the driver-side window, opened the door and extracted Foster.”
Police had dealt with Foster “several times,” Flatley said.
He was taken into custody and to the hospital complaining of back pain, adding that he had a spinal fracture and possible broken ribs, though it wasn’t clear whether those happened before or during the crash.
Slated for surgery, Foster was arraigned at the hospital and his bail was set at $250,000, Flatley said.
