Chase ends with suspect’s car hitting tree

A surveillance operation by Seneca police narcotics officers paid off with the arrest of a drug suspect, but not before a chase ensued through city streets and ended with the suspect’s car hitting a tree near the Wells Highway. During the noon hour yesterday on South Sixth Street, the police spotted an Acura automobile driven by Devin Samuel Prater. According to narcotics officers, several bags were tossed from the driver’s side window as a 90-mile an hour chase proceeded from South Sixth, to S. Walnut, onto Wells Highway, and finally onto Singing Pines Road where the Acura hit a tree and the occupant got out and began running. The police caught the runner and have announced the following charges against Prater, a 20-year old Westminster resident: possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Among items the police say they confiscated were a quantity of marijuana, $178 dollars in currency, a spoon with a melted substance, hypodermic needles and syringes.