CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Police gave Channel 2 Action News an inside look at a high-speed chase that took them from one city to another. Jonesboro police say the chase and ensuing conversation with the suspect shows its officers are compassionate and caring.
Most of what happened was recorded by an officer's dash cam and body cameras worn by officers at the scene.
"Don't I know you? What are you doing?” Jonesboro Officer Chris Cato asked 22-year-old Marcel Wright after he was captured on Southlake Parkway in Morrow.
Police say Wright had led them on a high-speed chase from one city to the other Saturday night around midnight.
Police say Wright put lives in jeopardy.
"It was extremely dangerous. The public was certainly exposed to some reckless conduct," Jonesboro Police Chief Franklin Allen told Channel 2’s Tom Jones.
Wright was captured after his girlfriend's new car flipped over and crashed, and he took off on foot. He encountered Officer Cato, who had compassion and tried to point out what a bad decision Wright had made.
"All this over a warrant?” Cato asked.
"I ain't got no excuse for it," Wright said from the back of a patrol car.
"You know what I’m saying? It was a warrant," Cato pointed out with emphasis.
Wright told officers he ran because he didn't want to go to jail on an outstanding felony warrant he had out of Gwinnett County. Cato told Wright it still wasn't worth it.
"That's a small infraction man. And even if you'd have went for the warrant. Guess what? You're alive. Everybody else is alive," he said.
Wright was apologetic, saying, "I'm sorry man. I didn't try and put nobody's life in danger."
Police were originally looking for a man who assaulted his girlfriend and was driving the same type of car as Wright.
They say they tried to pull Wright over when they noticed his headlights off, and that's when he took off.
It soon began to sink in that Wright had made a bad decision.
"I know I'm going down for a long time though," he could be heard saying on the videotape.
Cato told him it could have been worse, and he pointed out it just wasn't Wright's night.
"Listen to me though," he said. You wasn't even the guy we were looking for."
Wright faces several charges and is being held without bond.
His girlfriend bought the car he was driving three days before the crash. Wright told officers he was on the phone with her during the chase and was crying when he told her what was going on.