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Capt. Thomas Berta approached a red-colored 2010 Ford Edge with Maine license plates after finding it parked in the driveway of a vacant building that once housed the Cosan Chemical Company in the 400 block of 13th Street just after 11 a.m. yesterday.
He identified himself as a police officer and the driver hit the gas and sped off, Police Chief Thomas Nielsen said this afternoon.
Berta followed and radioed headquarters. Officers John Sanzari and Jonathan Rood found the car behind Burger Maker on 16 Street moments later, Nielsen said.
A passenger, later identified as Brady Bridges, Douglas Morin, took off on foot into a nearby creek, but Rood chased him down about 200 yards away, the chief said.
Sanzari, meanwhile, arrested the driver, Brady Bridges.
After obtaining Bridges’s consent, officers searched the vehicle and found “multiple items used to manufacture methamphetamines, as well as methamphetamines that were already manufactured and packaged,” Nielsen said.
They discovered additional items back at the abandoned factory, he said.
Detectives notified the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, who sent an investigator, the chief said.
Bridges, 44, of Houlten, ME, was charged with operating a drug manufacturing facility, eluding and possession of drugs — with the intent to distribute them — and drug paraphernalia, among other offenses.
Morin, 30, of Oakfield, ME, was charged with the same possession counts, as well as with resisting, among other offenses.
Both were being held on $91,000 bail each in the Bergen County Jail, with first court appearances set for March 5.
The Ford was impounded.
MUGSHOTS: Courtesy CARLSTADT PD
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