According to the police account, it wasn’t that Weifeng Wang of New York City was driving so fast that a patrol officer chasing him couldn’t catch up to him.
The officer caught up to him all right, since he was traveling slowly on the Post Road and then on Interstate 95 at only 30 to 40 mph at about 4 a.m. on Oct. 1, police said.
Here’s the police account (containing accusations not proven in court):
At about 3:52 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1, the officer saw a Dodge Caliber parked near Grieb’s Pharmacy at 1021 Post Road. As the officer watched, the car began traveling west on the Post Road at a slow speed (at first, about 15 mph), but with its headlights off, which caused the officer to want to stop the vehicle. The patrol car’s lights were activated.
The car didn’t stop. Instead, it slowly turned onto Interstate 95, at the entrance to the northbound traffic lanes near Exit 11. The car picked up speed — all the way to 35 mph — as the officer followed it and had state police informed of the situation.
The officer followed the car as it entered the Darien North rest stop, then stop momentarily, then drive back onto the highway, at 30 to 40 mph. The driver ignored the officer’s attempts to get it to stop.
By Exit 13, the officer ended the pursuit. But that didn’t end the matter.
About 45 minutes later, the same vehicle was seen driving through Darien on the Post Road — still without headlights. Police followed it and this time the car stopped on the Post Road, again, near the entrance to the northbound lanes of I-95 near Exit 11.
The police officer recognized the driver as the same man who had been followed before. This time, he had his girlfriend in the car with him.
It was difficult to communicate with the driver, who didn’t speak much English, but police were told he was returning home from a casino with his female friend and they were arguing over her gambling losses.
The driver saw the police lights but said he didn’t understand that he was supposed to stop when a patrol car was following him with flashing lights. He only recently had received his driver’s license.
Weifeng Wang, 37, of Flushing, Queens in New York City, was given an infraction ticket charging him with disobeying the signal of a police officer, failure to display headlights in the dark and driving at an unsafe (slow) speed.