Browning man jailed after two-county police chase
A Montana Highway Patrol vehicle is seen with its lights on in this file photo. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)
A Browning man was arrested Monday after authorities said he stole a vehicle in Columbia Falls and fled from police.
Theo Old Chief, 31, was booked into a Bureau of Indian Affairs jail in Browning pending charges from the Flathead County Attorney's Office.
According to the Flathead County Sheriff's Office, deputies at about 3:30 p.m. Monday found a vehicle that had just been reported stolen from the Town Pump gas station on Ninth Street in Columbia Falls.
Deputies saw the vehicle headed east on U.S. 2 and attempted to stop it in Hungry Horse.
The chase continued east before deputies called it off because of traffic congestion and concerns about Old Chief's unsafe driving, the sheriff's office said.
Two Bear Air Rescue later spotted the vehicle in the Marias Pass area headed toward East Glacier.
Glacier County authorities laid spike strips east of Marias Pass, deflating one of the vehicle's tires, but Old Chief allegedly continued driving toward Browning before stopping on a gravel road east of the town on Montana 89, where he was arrested.
The incident remains under investigation by Columbia Falls police, the sheriff's office and the Montana Highway Patrol.