ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – A man arrested Tuesday afternoon following a high-speed chase on Interstate 170 is facing a weapons charge.
According to the St. Louis County Police Department, law enforcement was searching for a late-model BMW X4 with heavily-tinted windows last seen fleeing a murder scene in Normandy on August 7. On August 9, officers with the county’s Drug Task Force unit spotted the vehicle near the St. Louis Galleria and attempted to make a traffic stop.
The driver of the BMW got on the interstate to try and escape the police. The BMW was eventually immobilized with spike strips and overturned on the off-ramp to the Ladue Road exit.
A man and woman inside the BMW were arrested, county police said in a probable cause statement. Two handguns were recovered from the vehicle, including a 9mm Glock that had been modified to fire automatically, making it a machine gun under federal definitions.
The driver, identified as Michael Hampton Jr., was charged Wednesday with unlawful possession of an illegal weapon and resisting arrest by fleeing.
Following the arrest, the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis said one of the people taken into custody had been a person of interest in a homicide that happened Sunday afternoon in Normandy.
Normandy police found 18-year-old Misean Hines shot to death in the backseat of a vehicle in a parking lot in the 7200 block of Natural Bridge Road on August 7.
Neither the county prosecutor’s office, the Normandy Police Department, nor the Major Case Squad could confirm if Hampton is, in fact, the person of interest in that homicide.
The investigation is ongoing. FOX 2 will give updates as more information becomes available.