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Police: Drunken driver causes 15 crashes, killing 1

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Gwinnett County police are investigating a series of hit-and-run crashes that police said turned deadly.

Investigators told Channel 2's Amy Napier Viteri the crashes started on Memorial Drive in DeKalb County and ended when the pickup truck involved in all of them rammed into a building on Highway 78 in Gwinnett County.

The 70-year-old driver was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide, DUI and other serious charges. The suspect has been identified as Michael Snider, of Stone Mountain. Police said one person was critically injured.

One of the drivers who was hit in the string of wrecks told Viteri that a truck hitting other cars chased him down Memorial Drive.

The driver's car was hit from behind and pushed into the intersection.

Police said the man was involved in five crashes in DeKalb County and 10 in Gwinnett County.

Police said the truck finally crashed into a restaurant, but not before killing at least one driver.

"I was at the light over there and I looked in my rear view and I saw this big pickup truck like a Ford F-350 or something like that," driver Dennis Brown said.

Brown said the truck hit one car on Memorial Drive and started coming for him, eventually slamming into the back of his Chrysler Pacifica.

"He intentionally tried to hit me so that's when he chased me, literally he chased me, on the road. It was like a video game. Really, I couldn't believe he was trying to do that," Brown said.

"How scared were you?" Viteri asked Brown.

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"I was afraid. I mean I'm driving and I'm like, if this guy hit me, 'Why is he trying to do that?' I was afraid. I was just trying to get out of the way," Brown said.

Police told Viteri the driver of the truck hit several cars in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, including around five at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Hambrick Road alone.

A Channel 2 Action News photographer shot video of another accident in which this car crashed into a tractor-trailer on Highway 78 in Gwinnett County.

Then police said the driver finally wrecked the truck, crashing into John Boy's Home Cooking in Snellville.

Brown said he's thankful to be alive.

"I'm hurt. My hand is hurt a little bit. I hit my head on the passenger side window. I'm just shaken up if anything," Brown said.

One driver also told Viteri she and several other drivers had to go to the hospital for injuries.