ATLANTA — A high-speed chase by the Georgia State Patrol ended with a car crashing into an Avis storefront on Courtland Street in downtown Atlanta, leaving the business boarded up.
The incident occurred early in the morning and required 14 hours of cleanup to address the damage caused by the crash.
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“It puts everybody at risk. There’s a time and a place for everything,” Kate Shanky, whose son Cooper died in a previous Georgia State Patrol chase, told Channel 2’s Eryn Rogers.
The Georgia State Patrol is still investigating the circumstances that led to the chase, which ended with the car crashing into the Avis store.
Shanky’s son was killed in a crash in Little Five Points after GPS pursued a driver down Moreland in April. He would have turned 20 on the 29th of this month.
She’s preparing to observe his first birthday without him.
“It’s incredibly difficult, it’s incredibly heartbreaking, and it was incredibly preventable,” Shanky said.
The Atlanta City Council passed a resolution in May urging the Georgia State Patrol to reform its pursuit policy.
“The end result of a lot of these chases is always going to be a crash, is always going to be destruction, and it’s not always going to be at the safety of our community,” Shanky said.
The driver involved in the chase that resulted in Cooper’s death has been indicted and is awaiting trial.
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