By Angie Thompson, Senior Reporter
TIFTON — A missing vehicle was recovered after a routine traffic stop Tuesday, but not before the driver bailed and ran, leaving the vehicle to collide with a Tifton Police patrol car.
At approximately 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, officer Jared Godwin with the Tifton Police Department was on patrol on Ferry Lake Road, near Fletcher Road, when he saw a gold Honda Accord traveling east. He wrote in his report that he pulled behind the vehicle and noticed the car had a temporary tag.
He wrote that he was trying to see the date on the temporary tag as the vehicle turned onto Fletcher Road and noticed the tag didn’t have vehicle information on it. He also noticed, according to his report,that the driver wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Godwin then attempted to stop the vehicle.
As the car turned into a driveway, Quentalin Sheriod Brown, 26, of 1001 Pineview Ave., jumped out of the car and started running from Godwin, the oficer wrote. In his report, Godwin said Brown put the car in neutral and it rolled back and struck the patrol car as Godwin was getting out of it. Godwin then put the Honda Accord in park and looked for the car’s registration. He wrote that he found a bill of sale showing Antonio Hamilton of Tifton had purchased the car on Jan. 21.
Godwin said he contacted Hamilton, who told him he had recently sold the car but that he wasn’t sure who had bought it. When Lt. Larry Scarborough arrived on the scene, Godwin wrote, he asked Godwin who owned a cell phone that was lying nearby in the mud on the ground. Then, officer Tom King, who had arrived on the scene, began looking through the car for insurance information when he found a driver’s license belonging to Brown.
While the officers were waiting for a wrecker to arrive, the cell phone started ringing. Godwin wrote that he answered the phone and when he identified himself, the caller hung up on him. He wrote in his report that the phone rang approximately 30 times with callers wanting to talk to Brown or asking if he was OK.
One call was from someone at 1002 Pine Ave., who claimed that the car had been stolen. Godwin visited Dora Leigh Dean, 54, at her residence at 1002 Pine Ave., and Dean said she had parked the car in front of her house at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and left the keys in it.
She told Godwin that she came out of her home at about 8 p.m., and the car was missing. Dean said she had bought the vehicle three or four days before and didn’t yet have insurance on it. Godwin said he explained that the car had just been recovered.
Dean told the officer that she knew Brown and that he was her son-in-law.
According to a spokesman at the Tifton Police Department, Brown was charged with not having insurance, with a seat belt violation, with failure to stop at a stop sign and with obstruction of an officer (misdemeanor).
He has been arraigned and is currently out on bail. Neither Godwin or Lt. Larry Scarborough were available for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Also, according to authorities:
• A man reported Wednesday someone had broken into Solomon Chapel on Railroad Street in Ty Ty. Nothing was reported missing.
• A deputy wrote in a report that he discovered that a window of Mt. Olive Baptist Church had been broken on Wednesday. Someone reported that $2 in property was stolen.
• A man who lives in the 1100 block of Doc Melton Sr. Drive reported Tuesday someone had broken into his house and stolen property valued at $1,100.
• A man who lives in the 500 block of Rogers Street reported Tuesday someone had stolen a Mitchell open face reel on an ugly stick rod, a combo valued at $80, an unknown brand bait caster reel and rod combo, valued at $80, and a tackle box valued at $100 from the back of his truck.
• A woman who works at U.S. Food Service Delivery, 718 W. Seventh St., reported Tuesday that one of her employees saw a black male in a red hoodie take a package of food off the delivery truck and run toward Peterson Apartments. The police report stated the company was unsure what had been stolen.
• A woman reported Tuesday someone had stolen a heating and air conditioning unit from a residence in the 800 block of W. Eighth Street. The value is estimated at $2,600.
• A man reported Tuesday he saw an unknown black male juvenile, believed to be approximately 12 years old, break the rear window of a mobile home in Captain’s Point Mobile Home Park. The man confronted the juvenile, who ran east through the mobile home park. The juvenile was last seen wearing a black jacket, black jeans and a green T-shirt.
