Car Was Surrounded In Brainerd; She Managed To Get Away
posted June 30, 2009
Chattanooga Police said a frightening incident in which a female doctor said her car was surrounded and she had to flee at a high rate of speed was filed as a "miscellaneous complaint."
Sgt. Jerri Weary said that was done "because there was no crime committed, and no identifiable suspect information."
Police initially said they could find no report about the May 13 incident at Wilcox Boulevard and Shallowford Road.
The report still could not be found at the police records office on Tuesday. Clerks said they had seen it, but could no longer locate it.
The doctor, who makes home visits for mostly low-income, inner-city patients, said she was in her SUV in the middle of the day when her vehicle was suddenly surrounded by three cars occupied mostly by black males. She estimated there were 18 people involved in the incident.
She said a black female got out of one of the cars, stood in front of her vehicle and taunted, "What are you going to do - run over me, b----?
The female doctor nodded as a warning, then gunned her SUV. She sped around the female in the street, and then was pursued by the three vehicles. She said she ran several red lights before making it safely to Highway 153 and losing her pursuers.
During the chase, she had her husband on a cell phone and he called 911.
She afterward met with a police officer and gave a statement.
Sgt. Weary said Tuesday, "Officers from our Crime Suppression Unit and Property Crimes Division followed up with (the victim) and have resolved the issue.
"There is no internal affairs investigation. The officer’s supervisor did an inquiry with the officer to find out what happened when the call was taken."
The doctor said she had not previously spoken out about the incident because of concern about the attackers.
She said the police department's Crime Suppression Unit had called her several times to obtain more details.
An email about the incident that was written by the doctor's mother began circulating soon after the incident.
The physician said, "I have been providing medical home visits in the inner city for eight years and I will continue to do so. I hope our community will see this as a call for action and not just a call to drive with your doors locked as many forwarded forms of my mother's frightening email say.
"Instead of instilling fear and racial divisiveness, our first response should be a call for participation in gang prevention programs, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, First Things First's family strengthening programs, and others.
"I understand this incident as a call to action towards narrowing our city's socio-economic divide."
She said it is also a call "for responsible email forwarding practices. Check facts first and be thoughtful when names are included.
"My mother did not expect when she sent an email on May 13 to her friends that it would be forwarded and changed and forwarded again to thousands of people. It did not occur to her that I would be fielding a dozen phone calls each day because very kind, concerned people receive it without a date and assume it just happened today.
"It has been six weeks and it feels like it could go on for years. The attempted assault on May 13 was very traumatic and the emails containing my name have perpetuated that trauma.
"The original email was true except for an inaccurate description of the police officer, but it has changed with each forwarding."
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