Bust leads to car chase through downtown Winder

Forty-year-old Tracy Dee Pritchett of Lawrenceville is facing 11 drug and traffic charges in the wake of the incident.

The chase began about 5:15 p.m. after a Barrow County sheriff’s deputy was tipped off that drugs could be inside Pritchett’s Isuzu Rodeo. He made the traffic stop after seeing the vehicle run a stop sign, said Sheriff’s Major Murray Kogod.

A female passenger immediately got out of the car and was approached by a second deputy who arrived at the scene. One of the deputies then spotted a pill beside a seat and “the driver cranked up the vehicle and left in an aggressive manner. That’s where it all started,” Kogod said.

Two or three county law enforcement vehicles chased the Rodeo down Richardson Street, May Street, Athens Street, Midland Avenue, Park Avenue, New Street, East 5th Avenue, through a yard on the southeast corner of New Street and East 5th Avenue, back to Midland Avenue and onto Bellview Street.

“The chase ended at Candler Street and Betts Street,” Kogod said. “In the end, she came to a stop on her own in the middle of the roadway. They boxed her in with patrol cars.”

Within minutes, a dozen or so law-enforcement and EMS vehicles converged at the scene, blocking the road in both directions.

Kogod said Pritchett was tasered as she was placed into custody because she was acting erratically.

“When she came to a stop and deputies approached her car, she locked the door and rolled up the window and was shouting to the deputies,” he said.

“She refused to get out of the vehicle. Then they knocked out the driver-side window and she continued to shout at them and that’s when the taser was deployed. She was reaching out at the officers and kicking at the officers as well.”

After Pritchett was restrained, deputies spotted a white substance on the side of her mouth.

She is facing 11 charges: three counts of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act; one count of tampering with evidence; one count of driving while unlicensed; one count of giving a false name; one count of non-use of a turn signal; one count of failure to stop at a stop sign; one count of reckless driving; one count of obstruction of officers; and one count of fleeing and attempting to elude law enforcement officers.

A passenger, Ann Baughcum, 34, of Winder, was not charged in the incident.