Man gets 3 years for speeding away from officers

A Box Elder man received a three year sentence to the Department of Corrections for leading Rocky Boy police and Montana Highway patrolmen on a high speed chase that reached over 120 mph.

Kanen Velasquez, born in 1996, was sentenced to three years for felony criminal endangerment under a plea agreement that dropped two misdemeanor charges.

District Court Judge Daniel Boucher said the reasons for this sentence are that Velasquez “recognizes he needs treatment, he is currently in a situation where he is not likely to get treatment on his own so it will be provided by the state, and it considers his young age.”

An officer with the Montana Highway Patrol set up stop sticks in a location north of Box Elder, May 2, 2015, to help stop a vehicle that Rocky Boy police was pursuing, according to court documents.

The driver, later identified as Velasquez, swerved around the stop sticks and the trooper joined the pursuit, in which the vehicle reached speeds of more than 120 mph.

Once on U.S. 87, the trooper took over the pursuit, and followed the vehicle on Laredo Road and then on Road 100 South, where Velasquez lost control and steered into a ditch.

The trooper got out of his car, drew his firearm and was about to give verbal commands, but Velasquez accelerated through a barbed-wire fence and through the field. The trooper got back in his car and followed along, parallel of the car, which was now driving through a field.

The trooper, supported by another Highway Patrol trooper by this time, drove onto the field and eventually found the vehicle, which had been abandoned. It took 15 minutes for the troopers to find the occupants of the car. The other was a juvenile.

Velasquez, who did not have a driver’s license, was asked why he ran.

“He replied it was what he wanted to do,” court documents say.