Loyalsock man charged after allegedly firing gun in Muncy apartment, later leading police on high-speed chase
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The man who crashed his car into a concrete divider on Lycoming Creek Road during a high-speed pursuit earlier this week was Wade Rinker, who has been arrested and jailed on numerous felonies and misdemeanors.
When he fled in his vehicle from his Loyalsock Township home on Hayes Lane just before 11 a.m. Tuesday, Rinker had been confronted by a state trooper who ordered him to stay put until “investigators” arrived to question him.
“Why are they coming here?” the 20-year-old Rinker asked as he and a female acquaintance fled 2000 Hayes Lane in his 2010 Hyundai Elantra.
He was wanted for his alleged involvement in a violent domestic disturbance hours earlier in which he fired a handgun inside a Muncy apartment on Noble Alley that was filled with numerous people.
No one was injured in the shooting, police said.
With their cruiser’s emergency lights and siren activated, state troopers attempted to stop Rinker at Log Run and Bloomingrove roads, but he ignored them, traveling into and through the city at speeds in excess of 70 mph as he ran stop signs and passed vehicles in no-passing zones, according to an affidavit.
The pursuit – which lasted for five minutes and 6.5 miles – came to an abrupt end when Rinker plowed into the divider in the 1900 block of Lycoming Creek Road.
While Rinker sustained upper-body injuries, his passenger was not hurt in the crash, police said.
There were two separate disturbances on Noble Alley allegedly involving Rinker, said police, who were not called to the first incident that took place about 2 a.m.
In that incident, Rinker arrived at the apartment, but he was soon ordered to leave by a tenant following an altercation, police said.
As he was pulling away in his car, Rinker suddenly started heading for a woman standing outside the apartment. “He accelerated and drove into her, pinning the woman between the car and a brick wall for about 45 seconds” before a second woman threw a brick through one of the car windows, police said.
After the window was shattered, Rinker sped away, police were told.
However, Rinker returned to the apartment about 5 a.m. – this time armed with a gun and wearing all black and a mask, it was alleged in the affidavit.
Despite the mask, at least two people in the apartment knew it was allegedly Rinker because they “could tell it was him through openings in the mask,” the affidavit stated.
“Where is the $500 for my window,” the masked man demanded as he pointed the gun at one woman and “cocked” it, police said.
The terrified woman ran down a hallway and sought shelter in a bedroom closet as a shot was fired, Trooper David Batkowski, the lead investigator, said in the affidavit.
It was alleged Rinker pointed the gun at several people in the living room before they too fled to individual bedrooms, the investigator said.
Rinker then soon fled the apartment. He was arraigned Thursday night before District Judge William Solomon on a series of charges related to the two disturbances plus the high-speed pursuit.
Those charges, all filed by Batkowski, included burglary, aggravated and simple assault, possession of a weapon, possession of an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person, robbery, criminal mischief, felony fleeing, DUI and about a dozen summary offenses. He was committed to the Lycoming County Prison in lieu of $500,0000 bail.