The Associated Press
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. (AP) - The police chief of Peachtree City asked Gov. Roy Barnes to curb police chases that have the potential for doing harm to innocent people.
Chief Jim Murray wrote Barnes on Monday, two days after a 22-mile chase that started in another county ended with the death of a Peachtree City resident.
“I would like to think that common sense would override the need to continue a police chase when it is obvious that innocent people’s lives are at stake or the conditions too dangerous to continue,” Murray wrote.
“I call upon you and the state of Georgia elected officials to please step in and try to develop legislation to prevent another death of an innocent person.”
A spokesman for the governor said Barnes had not read the letter on Monday.
Loraine McCrary, 37, of Jonesboro was speeding westbound on Georgia Highway 54 Saturday night when she slammed head-on into the driver’s side of a Chrysler minivan.
The driver of the minivan, 41-year-old Norman Charles Vicha Jr. of Peachtree City, was killed. It was the third fatal accident involving police chases in metro Atlanta in the past four months.
McCrary, who was driving a Ford Explorer, and her three children, who were in the car with her, were hospitalized.
According to police, the chase began in Luthersville in Meriwether County after an officer attempted to stop McCrary for leaving the scene of an accident. Authorities said she sped away, leading police across Coweta County and into Fayette County.
No charges had been filed as of Monday. State Patrol spokesman Gordy Wright said investigators found evidence of alcohol in the McCrary’s vehicle, but police were awaiting results of blood alcohol tests.
Luthersville police Chief D.A. Yates said he could not talk about the chase until the patrol finished investigating. He said he would ask an outside agency to investigate whether the case was warranted.