Police chase in Macon ends when suspect screeches to halt in front of parked train
A police chase from Macon’s south side stretched a few miles up Broadway and into Central City Park early Wednesday afternoon, ending when the driver of the car being chased blew out a tire and rumbled to a halt on some railroad tracks in front of a parked locomotive.
Bibb County sheriff’s deputies had moments earlier answered a call about a domestic disturbance in a neighborhood off Mead Road.
While cops were there shortly before 1 p.m., a champagne-colored Honda Civic cruised by. Some people the officers were talking to on Shi Place just east of Mead Road pointed at the car and said the man driving was involved the domestic matter.
Sheriff’s officials said the driver turned out not to be involved but that he refused to stop when a deputy tried to pull him over.
Then the chase was on.
The Honda breezed up Broadway onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It hung a right on Poplar Street after trying to squeeze past a parked van and a Chrysler 300 that was stopped at a red light, clipping both vehicles as it zipped by.
The Honda then shot down Lower Poplar toward the backside of Central City Park with its blown front-right tire peeling down to the rim.
As the car crossed a railroad track near Luther Williams Field, its driver for some reason hooked a hard right onto the tracks where a parked locomotive kept it from going further.
“You couldn’t ask for a better ending,” said the sheriff’s deputy who’d given chase.
The driver, James Michael Simmons, 43, of Macon, was arrested after what was described by cops as “a brief struggle.”
Simmons was jailed on charges that included eluding police. He was said to be wanted on charges in neighboring Twiggs and Jones counties, allegations that include felony obstruction and a probation violation.