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Daytime Police Chase on Busy ‘Golden Strip’

LOYALSOCK TOWNSHIP, Pa. — An accused drug dealer led police on a chase right in the middle of the day near Montoursville. The chase happened before noon W...

LOYALSOCK TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- An accused drug dealer led police on a chase right in the middle of the day near Montoursville.

The chase happened before noon Wednesday near Kmart on East Third Street, also known as the Golden Strip.

Police followed the driver for a few blocks before their cruiser purposely crashed into the van just a few blocks away.

Antoine Larke, 38, known by police as "Slick," was arraigned at a magistrate's office in Montoursville on 20 charges including drug delivery and fleeing police.

According to court papers, an undercover detective with the Lycoming County District Attorney's Narcotic Enforcement Unit, or NEU, bought nearly 1 gram of heroin from Larke. It happened in the Kmart parking lot on the Golden Strip near Montoursville.

State police officers attempted to make an arrest. That's when Larke took off down the busy main drag and troopers followed.

Kurt Mace of Williamsport was working on East Third Street. He says he heard the chase before he saw it.

"The sirens is what I heard, and then I saw the flashy red vehicle. Just right up his tail was a state cop, and I thought, 'Welp, wonder what that guy did today that he shouldn't have,'" Mace said.

According to arrest papers. Larke hit two cars before a state police vehicle purposely crashed into his red Chrysler, pushing the vehicle off the road and into the front yard of a business on Washington Boulevard.

Melanie Boone drives down the road for work nearly every day.

"That would be really scary because I know this is a really congested area. People are pulling out and in, and some are waiting to pull into parking lots. And with vans that we have that we're hauling people that's a really dangerous thing if that's going on," Boone said.

Court papers say undercover officers have bought drugs from Larke three separate times over the past two months. All of those buys were on or near the Golden Strip in Loyalsock Township.

"I'm glad they got him so nobody was injured as well."

According to police, when he was arrested Larke had 100 bags of suspected heroin with him and about $1,400 in cash.

His bail was set at $500,000 cash.

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