CHARLOTTE, N.C. — One person is dead and another is in the hospital after a deadly police pursuit Tuesday morning in west Charlotte.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officials told WCNC Charlotte that around 8:40 a.m. its officers got a hit on a license plate reader for a vehicle possibly involved with an armed robbery that happened Monday evening. The person reporting the crime said they were robbed at gunpoint and their vehicle was taken.
Police are not releasing at this time where the reported robbery took place.
CMPD officers reportedly tried to get the driver to pull over near South Boulevard and Clanton Road but were unsuccessful, which led to a police pursuit.
According to CMPD Deputy Chief Jacquelyn Hulsey, the pursuit lasted about 10 to 12 minutes.
Police said they deployed stop sticks on West Boulevard in order to stop the car. When the driver drove over the stop sticks, they reportedly continued to drive before crashing the car at West Boulevard and Donald Ross Road.
Hulsey said the officers approached the crashed car and found two people pinned inside. The fire department as well as Medic responded to the scene to extricate the passengers.
The driver of the vehicle was killed at the scene, according to police, and the passenger was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for what they said were non-life-threatening injuries. Their identities are not being released at this time.
When asked about CMPD's pursuit policy, Hulsey maintained officers' actions fell within the department's policy.
"Our policy regarding pursuits is for crimes dangerous to life, in which case this was reported as an armed robbery and carjacking and that is a crime dangerous to life, therefore the officers were within policy," she said.
CMPD's major crash unit will be investigating the collision, its armed robbery unit will be investigating the crime that reportedly caused the pursuit and CMPD's internal affairs unit will determine whether its procedures were followed.
In the meantime, as is standard procedure, CMPD placed the five officers directly involved on administrative assignment.
Department records analyzed by WCNC Charlotte show the number of CMPD pursuits has more than quadrupled over the last decade, from 22 in 2011 to 97 in 2021. Records show roughly one out of every four CMPD pursuits result in a crash.
At least two innocent bystanders died as the result of CMPD attempted traffic stops in 2022.
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