Published: May 13, 2008 08:23 am            

Richmond man arrested after brief pursuit

A 34-year-old Richmond man was arrested early Sunday morning on multiple charges after a brief vehicle pursuit by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.

Patrick Miles was charged with reckless driving, second-degree fleeing and evading, operating on a suspended license, first-degree driving under the influence, first-degree criminal mischief, failure to maintain insurance and failure to wear a seat belt.

Sgt. Mike Marcum and Deputy Kevin Crutcher were driving on Lancaster Avenue toward downtown Richmond around 1:25 a.m. when they observed a black GMC Envoy going about 70 mph toward the Eastern Bypass.

Marcum turned the cruiser around, hit the lights and sirens and proceeded to try to pull the vehicle over.

“It got down by Model School and went into the wrong lane and tried to cross the bypass against a red light,” Marcum said. “There wasn’t that much traffic since it was 1 a.m., but the bars were just letting out so it was kind of busy.”

After the suspect’s vehicle crossed the intersection toward E.W. James, it pulled into the Park-It Market off Lancaster Avenue.

“He pulled in there real slow up to the gas pumps and stopped,” Marcum said. “We jumped out and tried to get him out of the car. We got him out of the car and put cuffs on him. Once we did that, he didn’t want to go in the back seat of my car. We had a struggle there.”

“I went to put him in the car and he pushed me kind of with his shoulder,” he said. “It pushed me backward and he fell into (the side of) my car. We had to wrestle him down to the ground again. We finally got him in the back seat of the car. Of course, he was acting crazy all the way to the jail.”

The brief tussle led to a sizable dent in the quarter-panel of the passenger side of Marcum’s vehicle and the fender was pushed in.

“Hopefully, I can just pop it out,” said Marcum, who added he was not sure how much damage was done to the cruiser.

Miles refused all field sobriety tests, he said.

“From all my observations, he was definitely intoxicated,” Marcum said.

Bryan Marshall can be reached at bmarshall@richmondregister.com or 624-6691.

        

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