Man leads deputies on I-19 chase

A suicidal man led police on an early morning pursuit down Interstate 19 and through parts of Green Valley on Saturday, ending just south of Arivaca Road.

The 30-year-old man called the Tucson Police Department around 4 a.m. and told dispatchers he thought aliens were chasing him, according to a Pima County Sheriff’s report. The man also told them he had a gun in his car and was going to kill himself.

He drove his brown pickup truck between 60 and 75 mph along the interstate and sections of Mission Road before entering the freeway again at Duval Mine Road, the report said. He drove south on I-19 until the truck’s tires were shredded by a spike strip deputies laid out near the Arivaca Road exit, the report said.

After stopping the truck along the freeway, the man reportedly barricaded himself inside the vehicle with a gun for 40 minutes, wrapped in a fold-out sun shade. Deputies persuaded the man to exit the vehicle, the report said.

He was taken to a Tucson hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.