Truck driver investigation 'expedited'

Television law enforcement isn't real life, as often as we'd like it to be.

So we wonder why truck driver Benjamin Brewer wasn't arrested and jailed on June 25 - hours after police said he failed to stop his tractor-trailer and caused a wreck that killed six people on Interstate 75. Instead, as of Thursday afternoon, Brewer was nowhere to be found, still being sought on six counts of vehicular homicide, four counts of reckless aggravated assault, driving under the influence of narcotics, speeding and making false reports.

In reality, said Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston, the local grand jury indictment and subsequent warrant for his arrest came sooner than it might have normally.

Because of the size and complexity of the investigation, a number of reports by multiple agencies - including by the National Transportation Safety Board - had to be completed to have an "accurate charging decision," Pinkston said.

And, he said, while toxicology reports often can take 12 to 20 weeks to be returned, in this case the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Chattanooga Police Department asked for results to be expedited.

Though in theory Brewer might have been arrested on a "reckless" charge on the night of the incident, Pinkston said, completing the investigation allowed the rest of the charges to be added before the initial charge could be disposed of.

When the warrant for the truck driver's arrest was signed Monday, deputies went to the London, Ky., address Brewer had given investigators, but they found his relatives, not him, at the address. On Wednesday, deputies had no leads on his whereabouts, Laurel County Sheriff's Office public information officer Gilbert Acciardo said.

"To my understanding," Pinkston said, "there was communication with [Kentucky] officials to have eyes on him."

All that aside, Brewer is not in custody.