MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A carjacking led to a chase, a crash and finally an arrest at a busy Midtown intersection Friday and caused quite a traffic backup.
No injuries were reported to police, but the suspect and his passenger were taken to Regional One.
The scary situation made one witness drop down in his seat out of fear of what might happen next.
“I’m like he’s running—he’s running from the cops, and I told my buddy in the car to get down,” witness Austin Smith said. “I figured there was going to be a shooting.”
Smith said he saw a black Kia fly down a busy Poplar Avenue, so fast that it knocked the front bumper off a Mercedes and left pieces scattered across the road. The car eventually wrecked.
“The car smashed, glass flying everywhere, a terrible wreck,” Smith said.
The damage and deployed airbag did not stop the suspect behind the wheel.
“The driver of the black Kia climbs out of the sunroof, starts running down Poplar on foot running from the cops,” Smith said.
He said officers chased the man before finally tackling him at a nearby bus stop. Police followed him because he was a suspect in a recent carjacking.
“It seems like they were pulling off the street, officers, just everybody they had,” Matthew Hester, who works nearby, said.
An ambulance sat in the intersection, taking the suspect and his female passenger to get medical attention as police directed traffic and tried to clean up the scene.
Witnesses watched from inside the CrossFit gym where Hester worked.
“This is the first time as long as I’ve been here I’ve seen something like this,” Hester said.
Hester said he knows the intersection to be filled with flowing traffic.
Both witnesses said they were happy to see so many people escape without a scratch.
Police say the suspect is being interviewed and will face charges. A key piece to the story is the carjacking. WREG does not yet know details of this, but we have reached out to police for more information and will update when we learn more.
