Law enforcement in Frederick County, Maryland, arrested a man Friday following a multi-county chase. The driver, who had children with him, is accused of trying to hit police vehicles, among other charges.
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office began its pursuit of Cory Thomas Burkhardt, 37, at around 4 p.m. when he crossed the median on U.S. Route 15 and started driving southbound in the northbound lanes. Mr. Burkhardt had a 12-year-old, an 8-year-old and a 2-year-old in the car with him, the sheriff’s office said.
Mr. Burkhardt continued to flee and attempted to strike sheriff’s office cars and deputies, and he evaded two spike strip attempts while continuing to drive the wrong way, eventually getting on Interstate 270 and passing into Montgomery County, the sheriff’s office said.
A sheriff’s deputy was ultimately able to use a car to ram Mr. Burkhardt’s vehicle into a guardrail near the exit for Clarksburg on I-270, ending the chase. Mr. Burkhardt refused to exit the car at first but feigned compliance once deputies brandished non-lethal weapons, the sheriff’s office said. The two older children left the car first.
None of the children, law enforcement personnel or other people were injured in the chase.
Mr. Burkhardt got out of the car carrying the 2-year-old and tried to flee on foot, acting in a way that suggested he might have been armed, the sheriff’s office said.
Deputies used a Taser to stop Mr. Burkhardt and retrieve the 2-year-old, but Mr. Burkhardt continued resisting arrest and tried to take a deputy’s weapon from them.
After the use of additional but non-specified nonlethal methods, the sheriff’s office took Mr. Burkhardt into custody and transported him to a hospital for an “emergency evaluation.”
As deputies worked on charging Mr. Burkhardt at the hospital, he fled the facility on foot before being apprehended a second time.
Authorities charged Mr. Burkhardt with two counts of first-degree assault, four counts of second-degree assault, trying to flee a uniformed police officer by not stopping, trying to flee police in a police car by not stopping, negligent driving a vehicle in a careless and imprudent manner, reckless driving, driving on the median strip of a divided highway, failure to drive on the right-hand roadway of a divided highway, disarming a law enforcement officer, willfully disobeying a police officer’s lawful order and failure to secure a child under 2 years of age in a regulation-compliant car seat.
The sheriff’s office did not say in its release Saturday whether Mr. Burkhardt, a resident of Idlewylde, roughly 7 miles northeast of Baltimore, was still in the hospital or if he had been transferred elsewhere.
Idlewylde is not to be confused with Idlewild, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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