Man charged following car chase
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 15, 2026
A driver who took police on a high speed chase through Oak Harbor told an officer afterward that he was trying to get home — despite heading the wrong way, according to a police report.
Prosecutors charged Scott Cole, a 37 year-old Oak Harbor resident with no criminal history, in Island County Superior Court on May 9 with attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle. If convicted of the crime, he would face up to 60 days in jail under the standard sentencing range.
Oak Harbor Police Department Officer Markiese Smith was on a regular patrol in a police vehicle in the early morning of May 6 when he saw Cole drive northbound through a red light on Highway 20 across the intersection at Northeast Midway. The vehicle only had one working headlight, he noted in a police report.
When Smith turned on his emergency lights and drove approximately 20 feet behind the car, attempting to pull it over, the situation escalated. Cole “turned right onto Northeast Narrows Avenue and accelerated rapidly,” Smith detailed in his report. Still in pursuit, but now 150 feet from the car, Smith sped up to 50 miles per hour.
The chase wound through a residential neighborhood that has a posted 25 miles per hour speed limit. Smith noted in the report that Cole passed through multiple stop signs, accelerating to 400 feet ahead of Smith’s police car. Finally, ignoring another red traffic light, the driver turned right onto Highway 20 from Northeast Midway Boulevard, states the report.
At that point, another officer joined the pursuit.
Cole pulled over at a parking lot on Highway 20. The officers ordered him out of his car and arrested him.
“Due to the vehicle’s high speed and the driver’s attempt to elude law enforcement, the stop was treated as a felony stop,” Smith explained in a police report.
The report states that Cole told Smith that he had not seen his emergency lights. He also advised Kittelson that “he had forgotten something at home but then decided not to grab it,” it notes.
“Let it be known, Scott’s address was the opposite direction at which the route he took off,” Smith noted in the report.
