SE Bend chase ends in crash, pursuit, four arrests

A Deschutes County sheriff’s deputy tried to stop a car being driven suspiciously through a southeast Bend grocery store parking lot Monday night, triggering a brief pursuit and crash into a railroad embankment, then a foot chase and arrest of four occupants who ran into the neighborhood, deputies said. A stolen pistol, methamphetamine and heroin were recovered as well.

Around 8:40 p.m., a deputy was driving in the area of Southeast Third Street and Wilson Avenue when he noticed a brown Nissan Altima being driven suspiciously through the Grocery Outlet parking lot and avoiding the deputy on patrol, Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp said.

The driver, later identified as Lonnie Michael Fosburg, 29, of Bend, left the parking lot without yielding to oncoming traffic, Vander Kamp said. The deputy activated his emergency lights and siren to stop the driver for the violation, but the Nissan sped away, quickly turning onto Miller Avenue.

A pursuit lasted about two minutes, at 45-50 mph, ending when Fosburg’s car cashed into the BNSF railroad tracks embankment at the end of the dead-end street.

“It appeared the Nissan was trying to cross up and over the railroad tracks,” the sergeant said in a news release.

After the car stopped on the embankment, Fosburg and three passengers got out and ran in different directions throughout the neighborhood.

More deputies and Bend police officers converged on the scene and quickly found Fosburg running away. He was arrested after a brief struggle with deputies, who found user amounts of heroin and meth in his possession, Vander Kamp said.

Three passengers — Michael Vincent Dorazio, 44, of Corpus Christi, Texas; Cheyenne Porter, 20, of Bend; and Bobby Beau John (B.J.) Moody, 39, of Prineville — were captured without incident.

During the investigation, a pistol was found in the car, which was reported stolen during a Redmond residential burglary in May, Vander Kamp said.

There were no injuries or property damage reported. However, BNSF suspended train service for investigators’ safety until the car was removed.

Fosburg was taken to St. Charles Bend for a medical evaluation and was due to be booked later into the county jail on numerous charges, including felony and misdemeanor fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, felon in possession of a firearm, first-degree theft, meth and heroin possession, interfering with a peace officer, resisting arrest and a probation violation. He’ll be held without bail on the latter charge.

Dorazio and Porter were booked on charges of interfering with a peace officer and misdemeanor fleeing or attempting to elude police; Porter also faces a probation violation, so she was held without bail. Dorazio’s bail was $10,000.

Moody was arrested on charges of misdemeanor fleeing or attempting elude a police officer, felon in possession of a firearm, first-degree theft and felony meth possession. The jail’s charging sheet early Tuesday listed only the drug and felon in possession of a gun charges and $20,000 bail.

In July 2017, Fosburg, then living in Prineville, fled Deschutes and Crook County sheriff’s deputies in a pair of chases and was arrested at gunpoint the next day in the Alfalfa area after several more pursuits, according to a NewsChannel 21 article.. He was sentenced in September of last year to six months in jail and a one-year drivers license suspension.

In July of this year, Fosburg, with an outstanding arrest warrant, was arrested in Portland after police said he crashed a stolen car into several vehicles parked in a southeast Portland neighborhood, then ran but was caught nearby, media reports indicated.

Court records show Fosburg pleaded guilty in Portland in late August to two of the six charges and was sentenced to four months in jail and a three-year license suspension for reckless driving and 18 months probation for fleeing or attempting to elude police.

Moody pleaded guilty to meth possession in Deschutes County in 2015 and the following year recived a 30-day jail term when his probation was revoked, court records show.

After earlier drug arrests, Porter was arrested in March of this year in Multnomah County and June in Crook County on misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest, interfering with a police or probation officer and heroin possession. In Crook County, she pleaded no contest to two charges and received a 20-day jail term.