ROYAL OAK, Mich. – Dashcam video from a chase through Royal Oak and Highland Park was released Monday and suggests there's no such thing as a routine traffic stop.
The video shows Royal Oak police trying to stop a woman suspected of driving drunk early Friday morning, but she had other plans. The chase started along Woodward Avenue near 12 Mile Road, and didn't end until they got all the way to 6 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue in Highland Park.
Dashcam video was rolling throughout the entire chase. You can watch the dashcam video below:
At one point in the chase, there were seven police cruisers pursuing the Mazda SUV, and the chase lasted nearly 20 minutes.
The first call about the Mazda came in around 1 a.m. Friday, with the caller giving a license plate and suspecting the driver was drunk.
The first responding officer found the car at Woodward and Coolidge turning north. The officer turned on his lights, and then his sirens, and there was no response from the driver, who kept driving.
Police shined a spotlight and the car kept speeding up, then flipped around and drove south on Woodward. The driver stopped at a red light and Royal Oak police waited. When the light turned green, the driver kept going.
Eventually, police broke out the stop sticks, and the car's two front tires were flattened. But the driver only stopped momentarily and started driving again.
After a second attempt using stop sticks, the bumper of the Mazda started dragging behind the car, and the chase had gone through Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Ferndale, Detroit and Highland Park.
Police from five different agencies finally boxed the car in. When the driver refused to get out, officers broke the window.
Sgt. Donald Swiatkowski said the patience officers showed during the chase came from the time of day and traffic flow.
"This certainly would have been different at 3 in the afternoon on a day when kids are being let out of school," Swiatkowski said.
The driver was identified as Satira Marie Kitchen, 48, of Farmington Hills. She's charged with fleeing and eluding police, driving on a suspended license, drunken driving -- third offense and having open alcohol in the car during the chase.
Kitchen was arraigned Friday in 44th District Court. She is being held on $10,000 bail and will return to court this Friday.
When the call about the chase came out, other police agencies along Woodward blocked traffic on the cross streets at mile roads to prevent crashes. Officials said this was the longest chase they can remember in Royal Oak in a long time.