Trooper hurt in Armstrong pursuit, 1 arrested

A state trooper was hurt and a Michigan man arrested Monday after a police chase in Armstrong County.

State police said a trooper on patrol on Route 422 in Kittanning Township conducted a traffic stop on a Jeep Liberty after witnessing multiple traffic violations just after 6:15 p.m. The driver — Clark Kendrick Proctor, 23 — appeared impaired and troopers said they smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle, according to authorities.

Police said Proctor refused numerous times to get out of the vehicle for field sobriety tests and he fled as troopers tried to forcibly remove him. Troopers pursued him for more than a mile off the road and into a yard.

One pit maneuver, in which an officer uses their vehicle to push the fleeing vehicle sideways to end the pursuit, was unsuccessful. The patrol unit hit a tree and caught fire, police said.

A second pit maneuver ended the chase. A trooper was taken to a Pittsburgh hospital for treatment of what authorities described as non-life threatening injuries.

Troopers said they found a gun, drugs and drug paraphernalia in the Jeep. Proctor lives just outside of Detroit in West Bloomfield. It was unclear from a news release why he was in Armstrong County.

Proctor is charged with drug possession, fleeing from police, driving under the influence, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and several summary traffic violations.

He was arraigned Tuesday morning and lodged in the Armstrong County Jail on $75,000 bail, according to online court records. A preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 6. Proctor did not have an attorney listed in online court records.

He didn’t have a publicly available criminal history in Pennsylvania, according to online court records.