Catawba County high-speed chase ends with crash into golf cart shop

CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. — A high-speed chase in Catawba County ended with a car slamming into a golf cart shop on Friday night.

Police in Newton told Channel 9′s Dave Faherty they started the chase when they spotted an 18-year-old driver speeding near the fairgrounds along Highway 70. He refused to stop when officers tried to pull him over, they said.

During the 10-mile chase, speeds reached 100 miles per hour, police told Faherty.

Video obtained by Faherty shows the moment the chase ended in Conover at the intersection of Highway 16 and St. Peters Church Road. The suspect’s car went airborne before crashing into Golf Cars of Hickory. No one was inside the business at the time.

Newton chase ends in crash into golf cart shop

Police said a female passenger in the car was hurt in the crash.

The driver, identified by Newton police as 18-year-old Kasey Mecimore, faces numerous charges including felony speeding to elude. He has since bonded out of jail.

Keith Bowman owns Golf Cars of Hickory. He showed Faherty some of the damage and spoke with him about the suspect.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “Everything scattered everywhere. It’s going to have to be fixed and we need to keep going forward. They need to be responsible. They shouldn’t be running from the law.”

Hunter Philyaw showed Faherty where work has been done to temporarily fix the damage to a wall at the business. He wishes police could somehow track the cars instead of chasing them at high speeds.

“Tracers that they put on the back of a vehicle. I would much rather they use those than to do a chase and something happen, just because it’s more of a hazard and you put a lot of people in danger with a chase,” he said.

The chief of the Newton Police Department confirmed they do have a chase policy, and an internal review is already underway.

(WATCH: Cross-county deputy chase ends in crash in Cabarrus)

Cross-county deputy chase ends in crash in Cabarrus

©2024 Cox Media Group