Police Blotter

The peace and tranquility that I have experienced in the nearly two years of living at my current apartment here in Raleigh was interrupted late last night. While lying in bed preparing to call it a night, I heard a car traveling down the road at a high rate of speed. Cars flying down this road is nothing new, but my ears told me this one was traveling much faster than most. Then came the sounds of screeching tires and a heavy thud.

I peered out my window where a small group of passing motorists and residents from my apartment had started to gather. I couldn’t see the car, but knew that it must be resting at the bottom of a tree-lined embankment directly across the street from my apartment unit. I dressed and went out to see what the commotion was about.

As police cars, fire trucks and EMS vehicles arrived, I overheard someone in the gathering crowd say they saw the driver flee the scene and that someone, who was unresponsive, was still in the backseat of the mangled car. I said a quiet prayer for their safety. One of my neighbors said he saw part of the incident, but not the crash itself. He said the vehicle was trying to pass another vehicle and begin to veer off the road. He theorized it was a case a road rage gone awry. The tire tracks in the soft earth on the shoulder of the road were visible, as were the skid marks in the road that pointed to the car’s final destination.

I continued to watch from a distance all the activity that was taking place. Police officers took statements, measured the distance of the skid marks and rolled off police tape. I knew that wasn’t good…that this wasn’t just a regular accident and there was likely a fatality. A short time later, EMS workers and firefighters appeared at the top of the embankment with a person strapped to a stretcher. There didn’t appear to be a sense of urgency to load the person into the ambulance. When I saw the person’s arm on stretcher fall limply and dangle off the side of the stretcher as he was being loaded into the ambulance, I knew that he was at least unconscious, but most likely dead.

When I initially heard the speed at which the car was traveling and the subsequent crash, my first thought was that someone trying to be cool and go fast had simply lost control of their vehicle. I’m no Perry Mason, but when I heard others talking about the driver fleeing and leaving an unresponsive passenger in the car, I knew this was all wrong.

Well, according to this morning’s news, the passengers in the vehicle were suspects in a robbery at a nearby apartment who were fleeing the scene at the time of the crash. Following is WRAL TV’s account of the incident.

Robbery Suspect Dies In Wreck; Two Remain At Large

From WRAL.com
POSTED: 6:52 am EST February 17, 2005
UPDATED: 9:12 am EST February 17, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. -- One suspected robber died after a group fled a home invasion and robbery and wrecked their car late Wednesday night in Raleigh, police said.

Police said that a group of men broke into an apartment on Scholar Circle at the Ivy Chase Apartment complex around 11:20 p.m. Wednesday. During the robbery at the house, four people in the house were injured.

The three armed suspects fled the apartment, and soon afterward police received calls about a car that had wrecked on Lake Dam Road.

The suspects' car had slid off the road and down an embankment. One person in the car died.

Two people fled the scene, but not before threatening to hurt passing motorists who had stopped nearby to help, police said.

"All I saw was the car laying in the ditch," said Paul Offhaus. "(I) approached the vehicle after the accident and the driver of the vehicle said he was gonna shoot me."

Police found one of the robbery victims' wallets in the car. Police are still searching for the two other men.

The four people in the apartment were stabbed, but their injuries are not considered life-threatening.

Police were not chasing the suspects' car at the time of the wreck.