Police make arrest after high-speed chase in downtown Chester

CHESTER, S.C. — Michael White, 25, is charged after police said he led them on a high-speed chase through downtown Chester on Monday night.

The chase started on Pinckney Street and went over the hill downtown from Chester to Columbia Street. Sheriff Max Dorsey said White was weaving in and out of traffic and driving on the wrong side of the road.

"It was a very dangerous situation," Dorsey said.

The chase happened at 7:30 p.m. Sandra Cole was still at work at a salon downtown and heard the sirens going by.

"I didn't know what it was,” she said. Cole also lives only a few feet from where a man was shot Friday night on Ligon Street. She heard the gunshots and came out to help her neighbors.

“I came out and I just saw them out there crying, so I just gave her a hug," she said.

That high-speed chase Monday ended in almost the same place. Deputies said White got out of his car on Ligon Street and ran into a mobile home right next door to where the last shooting occurred Friday night.

Dorsey told Channel 9 that White's name came up as part of the investigation into the string of shootings in Chester this spring.

"Law enforcement officers identified a person of interest, who's been seen in some of these areas," Dorsey said. He didn't call White a suspect but said officers wanted to speak to him. He also said White's a fugitive from Baltimore, Maryland, where police want him on a burglary charge.

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White is only charged in connection with the police chase but not in connection with any of the shootings in Chester.

So far police are looking into 10 shootings in Chester since early April that have involved six victims.

No one has been killed, but police believe it's likely some shootings were in retaliation for others, so they're trying to put as many officers on patrol as they can. That's why an 10 extra officers, including South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents, are on the streets in Chester every night to try and prevent more shootings and arrest those responsible.

Cox Media Group