A Tunnel Hill, Georgia, man and his passenger died Monday afternoon when the vehicle they were riding in crashed near the intersection of U.S. 41 and Shugart Road in Dalton following a high-speed police chase.
The Whitfield County narcotics unit asked for assistance from the Tunnel Hill Police Department on a traffic stop involving a 2002 Volkswagen Beetle at around 3 p.m., according to a news release from Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood. The police said they had information that the driver of the vehicle, Kaleb Marshall Brown, 26, was distributing methamphetamine, was a felon in possession of a handgun and had an active felony warrant for aggravated assault out of Tennessee.
Brown was traveling south in the right turning lane on U.S. 41 when police attempted to stop him and he fled from a marked Tunnel Hill Police Department officer. That officer and a sheriff’s office deputy pursued the car. Chitwood said the Tunnel Hill officer performed a PIT maneuver on Brown’s car. The PIT maneuver, or precision immobilization technique, is a tactic in which a pursuing officer uses his or her cruiser to push the fleeing vehicle’s rear end sideways with the nose of the cruiser, sending the suspect’s vehicle into a spin.
(Read more: Police pursuit tactic under scrutiny after more deaths in Whitfield County, Georgia)
“Brown was able to recover from the maneuver and continued to flee from the officers,” Chitwood said. “As Brown approached the intersection of Highway 41 and Shugart Road, at a high rate of speed, Brown lost control of his vehicle and made contact with several vehicles to include a tractor-trailer.”