MEMPHIS, Tenn. – What began with a minor wreck in Parkway Village ended with a car careening across Castleman Street outside Wooddale Middle School and striking a utility box, then a confrontation with a threat of weapons, in a nearby yard.
A WREG crew was working on the next street over when they heard tires screeching and yelling just before 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
A man driving a white truck with a firefighter license plate wouldn’t identify himself, but told WREG that the driver of the wrecked car “took off, sped off, and he come around here and he hit the curb and he lost control.”
The truck driver said the driver of the car struck his truck about a mile away on Winchester and then fled.
“I was trying to exchange information with him and he hit-and-run, and so I was just trying to get a picture of his car,” the truck’s driver said.
But the family of the man driving the car tells a different story.
His mother wouldn’t go on camera, but told WREG her son told her that the truck hit his car. She said the truck then pulled up next to her son and that the truck driver flashed a gun before chasing her son to the intersection where he crashed.
Memphis police confirm they received a call from someone saying they were being chased by an armed person, but a spokesperson said that they hadn’t yet determined what the full story was.
When asked if he had a weapon, the truck driver said, “I’m not gonna comment on that.”
A police report confirmed that the truck driver was a Shelby County firefighter.
Police say it began when two drivers started exchanging information at Winchester and Perkins. One driver said to the other, “fool you hit me,” then drove off, prompting a chase.
The driver of the lead vehicle hit the utility box in a yard and, walked up to the other driver in the truck, who was taking pictures. That person indicated he had a weapon, and police say they found a Glock pistol in his vehicle.
