FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A Fairburn police officer is in the hospital after being run over by a pickup truck early Monday morning at the Holiday Inn Express at I-85 and Senoia Road, and the man who hit him got away.
The officer is Levar Sims.
Fairburn Deputy Chief Anthony Bazydlo said Sims is out of surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, is communicating well, and has serious injuries, but is expected to make a full recovery.
The incident happened around 2 a.m. when Sims responded to a fellow officer's call for backup about a suspicious vehicle in the hotel parking lot. Deputy Chief Bazydlo said a man was asleep behind the wheel when they approached the pickup, and they could smell alcohol and marijuana from inside the car.
"The first officer on scene was doing routine patrol ... especially with the Super Bowl in town we didn't want any car break-ins," said Bazydlo. "She noticed the truck there running and a man asleep behind the wheel."
11Alive obtained Sim's body camera video and the hotel security camera video. They show Sims walking up to a burgundy F-250 on the passengers' side and opening the door. In the video, Sims can be heard asking the man if he had a room at the Holiday Inn. The man did not answer and the officer asked if he had any weapons. The man said no and Sims and the other officer asked him to step out of the pickup.
Sims walked around the front of the truck toward the driver's side, but just then Sims jumped back into the pickup.
Sims tried to climb through the open passenger side door to try to stop the man. The man backed up, struck a semi parked behind him and then sped forward. The other officer tried to pull the man out through the driver's side door. Deputy Chief said that the officer would have been justified to use deadly force, at that point, but could not shoot because Officer Sims would have been in the line of fire.
Sims hung on until the pickup went over a speed hump in the parking lot.
"He fell under the tires of the truck. He was still holding on when the jostling of the speed bump knocked him off [the truck] and it appeared the front and rear tires ran over him," Bazydlo said.
The suspect has been identified as Taurean McShan from Memphis.
Police found the burgundy F-250 abandoned on Peggy Lane in Tyrone, Georgia --which is just across the county line from where this incident originally happened. They used canines and helicopters to search for McShan.
"We've widened our net and are reaching out to every law enforcement agency from here to Memphis," Bazydlo said.
Bazydlo said that McShan rented the truck and has been identified through documents found inside the car.
"It all started out seemingly routine, but there's nothing routine about what we do," Bazydlo said. "Initially it appeared everything was going to pan out but things turned dangerous really quickly."
McShan has a record of weapons and drugs arrests, Bazydlo said, but he had no outstanding warrants on him as of early this morning, no reason to flee.
"Maybe [he was afraid of having] that little bit of marijuana in the truck ... he might have received a citation and been released. We don't generally take people to jail for a misdemeanor," Bazydlo said.
Officer Sims is recovering at Grady and the extent of his injuries was not as severe as initially feared, Bazydlo said.
"He will have a recovery process ahead of him but we're expecting him to make a full recovery," he said.
Sims just started with Fairburn Police in November 2018. He transferred from MARTA Police.
"He's a good officer. We've only had him for a few months but he gets along with everyone and is always willing to help out. That's what he was doing [when this happened]," Bazydlo explained. "An officer called for backup and he was the first one to respond."
He said the Fairburn and law enforcement communities have been expressing their support.
"We've had a huge outpouring from the Fairburn community, with messages from all over the area wishing Officer Sims a speedy recovery," Bazydlo said.
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