SUV Crashes into Three S.C. Cruisers

Thursday, May 27, 2010

BY BO PERTERSON
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)



MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. -- The late-night police stop was eerie enough. Then it became blood-curdling.

Two patrol cars, with blue and amber lights flashing, stood right in the middle of U.S. Highway 17 at 2 a.m., and a third patrol car was lit up in the median. The officers prepared to do a field sobriety test on driver who had been stopped.

"I heard a slight 'chirp' of brakes locking up followed by a large impact," Mount Pleasant officer Jason Brandon wrote in a police report.

He looked up to see his patrol car skid into the cruiser in front of it, while an Isuzu Rodeo that had struck it veered into a Sullivan's Island squad car in the median.

The Isuzu, with two men inside, had smacked into two town squad cars in the road and caromed into the Sullivan's Island car.

A suspected driving-under-the-influence stop last Saturday by two Mount Pleasant officers at the request of a Sullivan's Island officer turned into the thing the officers were trying to avert - a wreck involving a driver who might be impaired.

Sullivan's Island Lt. Chris Griffin clambered out of his car, apparently OK.

Mount Pleasant officer Joseph Zeitner was up ahead off the road with the driver who been pulled over. Brandon went to check on the men in the Isuzu.

"While speaking with them, they repeatedly stated that they did not see any of our vehicles and did not know how it happened," Brandon wrote in the report.

The S.C. Highway Patrol responded to the wreck and Christopher Paul Koski, 33, of Mount Pleasant, was charged with driving while impaired, according to Cpl. Bob Beres.

Koski and a passenger were taken by ambulance to East Cooper Hospital.

Brandon's patrol car was towed away, and the outcome of the original traffic stop was unknown.

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