By Pearce Adams
Independent-Mail
ANDERSON, S.C. — Anderson police report that damage to one of their cruisers is not due to an officer running into a fleeing suspect, but caused by a foot-loose suspect running into the cruiser.
Hoyt Mulwee, 54, of Matise Way in Anderson was charged Thursday with reckless driving, a third offense of driving with a suspended license and failing to accompany an officer.
About 10 p.m. Thursday on East River Street, police said Mulwee fled from a traffic stop, driving on the wrong side of the road and accelerating through a parking lot before making a sudden stop, leaving two children in his car and fleeing on foot, according to the incident report.
During Friday’s hearing in Anderson Municipal Court, Judge Hugh Welborn told Mulwee that he also faces three bench warrants, two of which are for unpaid fines in 2007 and failure to pay court costs for a bad check in 2007.
Mulwee told Welborn that he would plead guilty to the current charges of driving with a suspended license and failure to accompany charges, but not to reckless driving.
During a hearing on Monday before Judge Ken Mattison, Mulwee pleaded guilty to failing to accompany and was fined $470 or 30 days in jail. The other two charges are scheduled for a city court hearing on Dec. 2.
“They said I jumped and ran,” Mulwee said at Monday’s hearing for failing to accompany."The officer hit me with the car, knocked off mirrors and spun me around. Then he shot me with that thing. I’ve got six to seven stitches in my head.”
Two children, under the age of 6, were left in Mulwee’s car as he attempted to outrun police, according to the report.
Officer Randall Human said Mulwee was looking at the pursuing officer when he ran blindly into Human’s patrol car, breaking a mirror and denting a door, according to his report.
After pursuing Mulwee to the property of a nearby stockyard, Officer Brandon Surratt used his Taser, but Mulwee did not stop until he jumped a steel railing, injuring his head when he fell to concrete, the report states.
According to the South Carolina Highway Patrol and a passenger in Mulwee’s car, Human did not hit the fleeing Mulwee, the report states.
Mulwee told a SCHP trooper that he “did admit to colliding in the side of the police vehicle, because all he wanted was to get away and not go to jail,” Human said in the report.
Copyright 2008 Independent-Mail