LAUDERHILL, Fla. – A suspect is in custody following a chase late Tuesday night in Broward County, authorities confirmed.
According to Broward Sheriff’s Office spokesman Carey Codd, deputies from BSO’s Lauderdale Lakes District responded to a report of a reckless driver in the area of State Road 7 and Oakland Park Boulevard just before 11 p.m.
He said a deputy on foot tried to pull over the driver, later identified as Alfred Alberto Richardson, 26, but the driver fled, hitting the deputy in the process.
According to Codd, a chase ensued into the city of Lauderhill, where the suspect crashed into several vehicles, including a deputy’s vehicle.
That deputy and the one who was initially struck were both taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Codd said another driver who was involved in the collision was also hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
While the suspect bailed out of the car and tried to flee on foot, he was detained by deputies with the assistance of Lauderhill police, Codd said.
“They had him on the ground and he was just like -- he kept asking, is he going to be OK? “Am I going to be OK? Am I going to be alright?’ And they kept telling him, ‘You’re going to be alright, just hold on,” Anthony Chapman, who witnessed the incident, said. “What I seen, it was just like a freight train coming through here and it was just like boom out of nowhere.”
Detectives with BSO’s Traffic Homicide and Violent Crimes units are investigating the circumstances of the incident.
Oakland Park Boulevard was shut down between Rock Island Road and Northwest 55th Avenue during the investigation.
Richardson faces charges of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence, reckless driving causing serious bodily injury, aggravated fleeing with serious injury or death and failing to remain at the scene of an accident involving serious injury.
He is currently being held at the Broward County Main Jail.