Driver in police pursuit across Charlotte area charged with multiple felonies

A 26-year-old driver has been charged with multiple offenses after he was accused of stealing four cars and leading police in an hours-long pursuit across the Charlotte area Wednesday.

A woman accused of stealing one of the cars also was arrested, Mecklenburg County Jail records show.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested Tyler Harding after a wreck at East Boulevard and South Boulevard in the Dilworth neighborhood ended the pursuit Wednesday afternoon.

Harding was treated at the scene for minor injuries and taken to a hospital “for further evaluation,” police Chief Johnny Jennings said at a news conference Wednesday.

Police charged Harding with three felony counts of vehicle larceny, two counts of breaking into a vehicle and one count each of felony hit and run causing serious injury/death, flee/elude arrest with a vehicle, possession of a stolen vehicle, second-degree burglary, misdemeanor vehicle larceny and misdemeanor larceny, jail records show.

Harding was jailed on $115,000 in bonds and has a court hearin scheduled for Friday morning, according to jail records.

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Police charged 28-year-old Charlotte resident Christa Harding with possession of a stolen vehicle. She was jailed on a $25,000 bond.

At a Thursday court hearing, a judge left the bond intact but ordered Christa Harding to wear an electronic monitor if she is freed.

Tyler Harding has a felony arrest history in Texas and was new to the Charlotte area, CMPD said in a tweet Thursday.

CMPD said Harding endangered other drivers by speeding, swerving and otherwise driving erratically along Interstate 77 and busy Charlotte roads. At several major intersections, he blew through red lights and briefly drove the wrong way, WSOC aerial footage showed.

Police said officers never “chased” the driver but instead used Snoopy, CMPD’s helicopter, to track the driver.

Chasing a suspect in such instances is against department policy, Jennings said.

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No one else was injured, police said.

Jennings said the first three cars stolen resulted from auto thefts, not carjackings, and that’s why officers pursued the driver after the fourth vehicle — a black Infiniti SUV — was stolen in Ballantyne.

Police initially thought a person was inside the SUV, Jennings said, and that’s when officers pursued the vehicle.

Jennings, during an earlier interview with the Observer at police headquarters, said it was “appalling” to him that someone “has that much disregard for the safety of our public.”

He called it “a very dangerous ... no-win situation.”

“We were not in this area where we could pursue, based on our policy, until the last time he stole that last vehicle,” he told the Observer moments after the suspect’s arrest.

“In the end, you always keep your fingers crossed, and you hope that it doesn’t end with something tragic,” he said. “Fortunately this did not end with anything tragic.”

Observer staff writer Michael Gordon contributed to this story.