Man crashes, runs from deputies after high speed chase

OAK CREEK -- A normal Sunday afternoon turned into panic for the St. Mary & St. Antonious congregation.



\"Heard a loud bang and then I saw a guy come run across the parking lot,\" a church member recalled.



Asking only to be identified by her first name, church member Nancy was outside with her kids when this car crashed  into a ditch across the road.  The driver got out and sprinted right past her.



\"I was just more thinking about my kids and all the other kids,\" Nancy said.  \"Just more concerned that he was going to go into the church.\"



The chase started about 20 minutes earlier after a Racine County Sheriff's Deputy pulled over 22-year-old Dametri Horton on I-94 northbound near Highway G.



\"When the officer asked if the driver and only occupant had any drugs in the car, he took off,\" Racine County Lt. Dan Klatt said.



Horton led sheriff's deputies on a chase with speeds close to 100 miles-per-hour before exiting at Drexel Avenue and crashing.  He ran past the church, a school and through wooded areas.



\"People were kind of scared and started closing the doors and looking for the kids,\" church member Nadr Botros said.



Milwaukee County Sheriff's Deputies and Oak Creek Police set up a perimeter.  Within about 25 minutes, a Racine County deputy found Horton hiding in an abandoned car on Puetz Road and arrested him.



\"We found out the police caught him and we caught our breath,\" Botros said.



\"I'm very relieved they caught him,\" Nancy said.  \"Then I can tell my son, who's a little bit nervous about it.\"



Horton is in the Racine County Jail.  He faces reckless endangering safety, fleeing and eluding an officer and drug paraphernalia possession charges.  He's been convicted of THC possession twice in the last four years.