Laurel teen killed in crash eluding LPD | Free News

A Laurel teenager who was believed to have been trying to elude police crashed into a tree on hospital property on Friday night and died.

Dakota Gray, 18, was pronounced dead at South Central Regional Medical Center by Deputy Coroner Don Sumrall.

Gray had reportedly fled from a Laurel police “safety checkpoint” at 13th Avenue and Jefferson Street in a Nissan and “circled back” to the same area after getting away, then crashing into a tree, according to initial reports.

Police were no longer pursuing when the vehicle crashed near the old entrance to the emergency room at SCRMC and a couple hundred yards from the former location of the morgue.

“The supervisor had called it off,” LPD Chief Tommy Cox said of the pursuit, but an officer in another unit spotted the suspect vehicle “passing vehicles” in town a short time later. A witness told police that when the Nissan went through the intersection and crashed into the tree, police weren’t in sight, Cox said.

There are reports that officers at the checkpoint smelled marijuana, and when they tried to investigate further, Gray left the scene at a high rate of speed, nearly striking an officer in doing so.

“What officers want is for people to stop and pull over,” Cox said. “Nobody ever wants to see anyone get hurt or killed. Our condolences go out to the family. We don’t ever want anything like this to happen. It’s a horrible situation.”

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