Suspects caught after two-state police chase

An hour-long police chase along the Pennsylvania-Delaware border ended early Wednesday with the arrest of two Wilmington men accused of stealing about $30,000 worth of women's shoes and handbags from a Concord Township store around 4 a.m.

Eric Lecompte, 21, and Harry Anderson, 41, were captured after a predawn pursuit that involved three police departments and two states.

The two were seen leaving the Glen Eagle Shopping Center, just north of the Delaware border, in a white Jeep Cherokee around 4:20 a.m., about the time that two state troopers on patrol nearby received a "smashed-window alarm" from Vivi G Shoes in the complex, a police news release said. Thieves had broken in through a storefront window.

Troopers Timothy Greene and Brett Kahler, thinking that the Jeep might have been involved in the robbery, pursued it, losing it at one point, then spotting it again.

They chased it as it briefly entered Delaware and then crossed into Chester County, officials said. Troopers from the Avondale and Embreeville barracks joined the chase.

Lecompte and Anderson tried to ram the police vehicles several times, but were slowed by spike sticks, which flattened two of their tires, police said.

The suspects were taken into custody as the chase ended at Hallmore Road and Route 926, authorities said.

The two men were held in Delaware County yesterday on charges of burglary, theft and aggravated assault.