ATLANTA — A car involved in street racing on Friday night that had been doing donuts on a busy northeast Atlanta road fled troopers, hit a person and then crashed into another car a short ways away, Georgia State Patrol said.
The driver now faces a slew of charges, including felony fleeing, reckless driving, reckless stunt driving and hit and run.
According to GSP, the incident began after 11 p.m. when troopers with a DUI task force were asked to check out street racing activity by the Atlanta Police Department Aviation Unit, which had spotted the car.
Troopers arrived to the intersection of Piedmont Avenue and Rock Springs Road, near the Grindhouse Burgers restaurant, and "noticed a silver Pontiac G8 spinning and doing donuts in the middle of the intersection."
At that point the troopers tried to stop the vehicle, but "the driver fled initiating a pursuit."
In that moment, the car hit a person described by GSP as a "street racing observer" and the pursuit continued on to Monroe Drive. There, the "driver lost control and traveled off the right shoulder of the roadway" and then, veering back onto the road, he "struck a black Mercedes head-on."
A trooper then stopped the car with a PIT maneuver.
Remarkably, there were no serious injuries reported either to driver of the Mercedes that was hit or to the driver of the Pontiac and his two passengers.
The driver of the Mercedes complained of minor injuries but did not go to the hospital, GSP said. The street racing driver and two passengers were taken to Atlanta Medical Center to be examined before being released to the Atlanta City Jail. In addition to the charges for the driver, the two passengers face obstruction charges.
Police did not locate the person who was hit by the Pontiac at the initial scene. GSP said that individual fled on foot; if was not clear if they had any serious injury.