SUMMERDALE, Ala. — Police are asking the public’s help in finding a man who allegedly stole a truckload of plants Tuesday night from a local landscape supply, then led authorities on a high speed chase.

Police Chief Dwain Riebeling said the suspect could be facing not only a second-degree theft of property charge, a felony, for taking approximately $1,500 worth of plants but also a charge of attempted assault with a motor vehicle for nearly running over a Summerdale reserve police officer.

Riebeling said Thursday the suspect is in all likelihood a local person.

According to Riebeling, on the night in question Summerdale Officer T.J. Palkovic and a reserve officer were passing Magnolia Landscape Supply Inc. at 117 Ala. Highway 59 South. As the officers drove past the business they saw vehicle lights inside the business area and turned around. They pulled up in the business drive and saw a pickup, Riebeling said.

The reserve officer got out of the patrol car and confronted the driver of the pickup but the suspect sped away. The reserve officer was within 15 feet or so of the suspect’s vehicle when the driver bolted, leaving the business through a ditch, according to Riebeling.

Indeed, Riebeling said the reserve officer was close enough to the suspect at that point that he got a good description of the driver: white male; muscular build, short, blond hair; and wearing a black shirt.

The vehicle the suspect was driving is described as a newer model 4-wheel drive pickup, possibly a 2007 or 2008 Toyota, with 3-inch lift. When it left the landscape supply business, Riebeling described the vehicle as “loaded down with palm trees.”

Of the suspect, Riebeling said he might well be somebody who works out based on the muscular build and the fact some of the stolen merchandise in the truck was such that an ordinary person would have trouble lifting it.

As he ran from officers at the landscape supply, the suspect headed north on Highway 59 without lights, Riebeling said, noting speeds reached 125 to 130 miles an hour on the way to Robertsdale.

At one point, in Robertsdale at a curve near Campbell Hardware & Supply Co. on 59, Riebeling said Palkovic thought the suspect would lose control of his vehicle due to the speed. Just beyond that point Robertsdale police put out spike strips and appear to have clipped one of the tires on the fleeing vehicle. Five road spikes were missing, Riebeling said.

Nevertheless, the suspect turned the corner by Ivey’s restaurant and made a number of other turns and eventually eluded police. At one point, the suspect might even have gotten on the bike trail in Robertsdale and allegedly nearly hit somebody, Riebeling said.

Anyone with information concerning this incident is urged to call Summerdale Police Department at 989-6446.

Area tire businesses have been notified to be on the lookout for a pickup truck that fits the description of the suspect’s, Riebeli