Wardens nab Harmony hunter after high-speed highway chase> 20-year-old faces several charges, including aggravated assault

HARMONY — A 20-year-old Harmony man, who was caught illuminating a field Sunday evening allegedly looking for game, led law enforcement officials on a high-speed chase through Harmony that resulted in considerable damage to a cruiser.

Several charges are pending against Bruce Bradley, including three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, illuminating a field, and one count of eluding an officer, according to Warden Sgt. Dan Tourtelotte of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Sgt. Tourtelotte said he was part of a team of wardens working the Harmony-Ripley area for night hunters when the incident occurred at about 8:30 p.m.

He said after Bradley turned his vehicle lights onto a field allegedly searching for deer, a warden vehicle pulled in behind his vehicle and the blue lights were displayed.

The vehicle then took off at a very high rate of speed traveling on Route 150 several miles before exiting on a side road, and then turning back onto Route 150, according to Tourtelotte.

Tourtelotte said Bradley slammed on his brakes twice during the pursuit and the warden following in a 1994 Taurus cruiser “kind of slid by him and when he did, the guy came over the center line and hit him. … two different times.”

He estimated the damage to the cruiser at $4,000.

The chase ended when Bradley’s older model Buick LaSabre went off the road and into a hay field.

No one was injured during the chase, according to Tourtelotte.