MOULTRIE – Was he tall or short? Passengers of a vehicle involved in a police chase gave differing descriptions of the driver, which gained them arrests for obstruction of an officer.

On Sept. 10, around 10 p.m., a Moultrie police officer’s license plate reader alerted him to a white Honda Accord passing him with an expired tag. The officer attempted to catch up to the vehicle and while verifying the tag with dispatch, he saw the vehicle run the stop sign located at Circle Drive and Third Avenue Southeast, according to the officer’s report. At that time, the officer activated his emergency lights to try and pull the vehicle over.

The vehicle proceeded to also run the stop sign at Third Avenue Southeast and Talmadge Drive, turning north onto Talmadge. The officer activated his siren and saw the vehicle turn east on Fifth Avenue Southeast. He called out that the vehicle was traveling towards Veterans Parkway on Fifth Avenue SE over his radio.

While clearing the intersection at Fifth Avenue and Talmadge, the officer saw the Honda drive off the roadway into the woods. The wrecked vehicle was still running when the officer approached it and heard screaming from inside. He instructed the passengers to unlock the door and two women, who stated that they were “okay,” told the officer that a male subject had fled into the woods. After requesting EMS to check out the women, the officer requested assistance from GSP and the Sheriff’s Office and then entered the woods to try and track the subject.

As the officer had no contact with the driver, he returned to question the two women. They stated that they were passengers and verified that the subject who fled was the driver. It was also stated that the driver was a boyfriend of one of the women. When asked for the driver’s name, each of the women stated that they did not know his name but provided a nickname of “BaeBae.” One of the women also gave a description of what he was wearing and told the officer that they were heading to Walmart.

The officer went back to search the Honda, which was wedged between two small trees with damage to the driver and passenger side fenders. He found nothing illegal in the vehicle but did observe that the driver’s seat was close to the steering wheel, which indicated to the officer that someone short was driving.

After reading each of the women the Miranda warning and them agreeing to speak with the officer, separately, they were questioned further. The officer again asked each who was driving the vehicle and each stated, again, that it was a boyfriend of one of the women. The “girlfriend” said that she had been dating him for only a month and did not know his name.

During the questioning, the woman who was not the “girlfriend” of the subject, stated his name was “Montrell” and he was from Pelham. She also stated that she believed the driver had marijuana and a gun and that was the reason that he ran. She described “Montrell” as a short, black man with short dreads.