Fleeing motorcyclist dies after crash
Doesn't stop for UGA, A-C police
A 22-year-old Lexington man died Wednesday morning, a day after he crashed his motorcycle in Bogart while fleeing from police, a Georgia State Patrol official said.
The 2:45 a.m. crash Tuesday culminated a chase initiated by a University of Georgia police officer, who spotted a man without a helmet driving a motorcycle on South Jackson Street and tried to pull him over at the corner of South Lumpkin and Baldwin streets, but the motorcycle sped away, UGA police Capt. Lisa Boone said.
The officer did not chase him, she said, because it is departmental policy not to pursue speeding vehicles for misdemeanor offenses such as failing to wear a helmet.
The UGA officer issued a lookout for the motorcycle, which an Athens-Clarke police officer soon spotted as the bike sped west on Atlanta Highway near Georgia Square Mall, Athens-Clarke police spokeswoman Hilda Sorrow said.
When the officer got behind the motorcycle and tried to stop it by activating the police cruiser's emergency lights and siren, the motorcycle accelerated toward Bogart, and the officer was told by a supervisor not to chase, Sorrow said.
The Athens-Clarke officer continued west on Atlanta Highway, however, and "rolled up on the crash," according to Georgia State Patrol Sgt. Allen Marlowe.
The motorcyclist, identified as Joseph Embrick, apparently was unable to negotiate a curve and drove onto the shoulder, crashing into a "Welcome to Bogart" sign, throwing him and his passenger from the motorcycle, Marlowe said.
Embrick and his passenger, 18-year-old Jessica Lordan of Kennesaw, were taken to St. Mary's Hospital, where Embrick died when taken off life support at about 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Lordan was released from the hospital after she was treated for unspecified injuries, Marlowe said.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday, August 6, 2005
Topic: Get away twice and still wreck (Read 2505 times)