Driver arrested after 130 mph chase on I-84 from La Grande to Baker City

A Bremerton man was arrested in north Baker City after a high-speed run on Interstate 84 that Oregon State Police said reached more than 130 mph through the La Grande-to-Baker City corridor, one of eastern Oregon’s most heavily traveled freeway stretches.

Garret Matthew Breinholt, 31, was taken into custody about 6:45 p.m. April 29 at Cedar Street and Hughes Lane. He was booked into the Baker County Jail and charged with reckless driving, a Class A misdemeanor, and attempting to elude police, a Class C felony. He was scheduled to be arraigned the next day in Baker County Circuit Court.

The chase began when a trooper clocked Breinholt’s Hyundai Sonata at 106 mph in the eastbound lanes near milepost 260, just west of La Grande. A trooper wrote that the car passed a commercial truck on the shoulder, kicking up a large cloud of dust, before continuing eastbound. Another trooper later saw it near milepost 278 at a high rate of speed, and a third trooper pulled in behind the sedan with emergency lights on, but the driver still failed to yield.

Troopers said the car kept going for another 15 miles and reached speeds over 130 mph. The report said the Hyundai made unsafe passes on the shoulders multiple times before it exited at the North Baker City interchange and was found shortly afterward at Cedar Street and Hughes Lane. That intersection also appears in Oregon Department of Transportation planning documents tied to the Baker City interchange area, underscoring how closely this stretch is watched by transportation officials.

The run mattered well beyond the arrest itself. ODOT describes I-84 as a major route from Portland to eastern Oregon and Idaho, part of the national highway system and a designated freight and vertical clearance route. Its traffic-counting system tracks Annual Average Daily Traffic and truck percentages, a reminder that the freeway carries not just commuters but heavy commercial traffic through Union County every day.

Oregon State Police says its Patrol Services Division is responsible for crash reduction, crime reduction and other transportation safety issues on state and interstate highways. For drivers who encounter an active pursuit, the state driver manual says to yield the right of way to emergency vehicles using lights or sirens and to move over only when it can be done safely. On I-84, where speeds are already high and traffic mixes passenger cars with freight, that kind of split-second judgment can be the difference between a close call and a tragedy.