A man pulled over for a seatbelt violation fled the scene, dragging a Utah police officer with him before crashing head-on into a police vehicle, according to a recently released bodycam video from the Ogden Police Department.
The suspect, James Franklin, 23, died in the collision that took place in July, KUTV reported.
The video shows that during the traffic stop, the officer who initially pulled him over for a seatbelt violation notices that his license plates does not match his registration.
Franklin attempts to explain why the plates do not match the registration before the officer asks him to step out of the vehicle, according to the video.
Two other officers arrive at the scene not too long after the officer asked the man to exit his vehicle. The video showed the two officers trying to get Franklin out of the driver’s seat.
Moments later, Franklin starts to speed away, dragging one of the officers with him.
“[Franklin] had accelerated so quickly that I grabbed onto [Franklin] so that I would not fall out of the vehicle. I estimated that [Franklin] was traveling at approximately 60 miles per hour as we began fighting over the steering wheel,” the officer wrote in his report, obtained by KUTV.
About a block away from where the incident took place, Franklin’s car hit a curb and the Ogden police officer holding on to the car was thrown to the ground.
Franklin then sped off. The officer then radioed his colleagues and said, “officer down,” while the two other officers tried to catch up to Franklin.
Franklin’s vehicle then hit another police cruiser head-on and died at the scene despite the officers’ attempts to render medical aid.