Sheriff John Cupp said the Red Bank Police officer who was killed in a crash that also claimed the life of an employee of a streetsweeper firm was traveling at speeds up to 70 miles per hour.
Sheriff Cupp said Officer Gerald Warf was going between 68-70.25 miles per hour approximately 41 feet from the point of impact.
Anthony Davenport also died in the incident at 3:15 a.m. on June 28. It was on Dayton Boulevard near Signal Mountain Road.
Sheriff Cupp said the officer was responding to a call for help from a fellow officer on a wreck with someone pinned in a vehicle in the middle part of Red Bank.
He said Officer Warf, who was 31, rounded a curve coming down the hill from the tunnels at Stringers Ridge. He said he then went into a "yaw" in which his vehicle was not in control and was going sideways.
He said Officer Warf may have noticed that the streetsweeper vehicle had stopped in the storage lane of Dayton Boulevard ahead of him, or there might have been another distraction.
The sheriff said Mr. Davenport for some reason had gotten out of his vehicle and may have been working on some problem with it. A flashlight and a screwdriver were found at the scene.
The police car hit Mr. Davenport, killing him on impact. It also hit the 1983 S10 pickup truck he was driving. The pickup had a sweeper on the back, and Mr. Davenport had just finished a job at the parking lot of the nearby Blockbuster Video. Mr. Davenport was employed by Metro Lot Maintenance, Inc.
Officer Warf died en route to the hospital.
Sheriff Cupp said the speed of the police car on impact was about 57 miles per hour. The accident occurred in a 45 mile per hour zone.
The sheriff said Officer Warf was not wearing a seat belt, but that the lights and siren were activated.
Sheriff Cupp said the officer's actions and speed were "probably not out of order given that he had his lights and siren on."
The switch for the lights was on the On position and the switch for the siren was in the manual position.
The sheriff said the wreck was witnessed by two people in a car coming from the direction of the nearby Waffle House. He said they could not say how fast the officer was traveling.
Sheriff Cupp said the investigation is still ongoing as toxicology reports are not back. He said information from the medical examiner's office also has not been received.
He said he would be sharing information on the report with Red Bank Police Chief Larry Sneed.