SAEED AHMED
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A man running from East Point police was struck and killed by a patrol car Tuesday, authorities said.
The Georgia State Patrol, which is investigating the incident, said Lewis Asimoah, 23, was struck in the parking lot of a business in the 400 block of Commerce Drive.
The agency said it will try to reconstruct the collision and would not confirm witness accounts that Asimoah was run over by the police cruiser, which did not have its siren on, during the pursuit.
The incident began shortly before noon when employees at a nearby motel called police to report a person acting suspiciously, said State Patrol spokesman Larry Schnall.
East Point police said an officer patrolling the area recognized the man as someone wanted in a carjacking.
The suspect was considered armed and dangerous, police Chief Frank Brown said in a statement. And when the officer approached him, he ran off.
The officer, James Nicholas Crisp, got in his patrol car and went after the man who had run across the road to a nearby parking lot, authorities said.
Shortly afterward, “there was some type of collision,” Schnall, the State Patrol spokesman, said.
Marcia Turney told WSB-TV that the officer’s vehicle did not have its lights or sirens on during the chase. When Asimoah was struck, he bounced off the front hood and appeared to go under one of the car’s wheels, Turney told the television station.
Chief Brown said the man got up after the impact and began fighting with the officer. Once he was eventually restrained, officers called for medical attention and found cocaine in the man’s possession, he said.
Crisp, who has been with the department for 2 1/2 years, was placed on leave until investigations by the State Patrol, the East Point Police Department and the Critical Incident Team --- comprised of investigators from other agencies and the Fulton County district attorney’s office --- is complete.
May 24, 2006