ZPD: 6 vehicles hit, officer injured after Zanesville man leads police on chase

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating a crash after a Zanesville man lead police and the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office on a chase.

The pursuit ended with a crash on North 60.

Chief Tony Coury says an officer was near the Moto Mart on Maple Avenue on Friday afternoon when they saw a driver acting erratically.

“Sometime after 1:30 this afternoon, officers were alerted to a vehicle around Moto Mart on Maple Avenue and we were told that the person driving was acting erratically and went into the store, caused a little bit of commotion, got back in the vehicle. Our officers located that on Maple Avenue and we tried to stop that vehicle.”

They initiated a traffic stop but the driver refused to pull over. Police chased the car to the Dollar General in Nashport and that’s when the driver hit the officer’s car, according to police.

An officer was injured after the suspect struck his vehicle, according to police.

According to Coury, this is the second officer injured within 24 hours.

Coury says during the pursuit, the driver hit four vehicles driven by law enforcement and two vehicles owned by civilians.

“Our car was struck. We also did strike that vehicle. During this pursuit, the suspect car did strike multiple vehicles, multiple police vehicles with us and the sheriff’s department.”

The chase continued and Coury says the driver threw money out the window along the way.

“He was throwing money out of the window while we were pursuing him so we don’t know why the erratic behavior. We’re trying to — I guess we’re trying that money up if anybody has seen that money and saw the money getting tossed. We’d appreciate it if you’d give it back.”

Coury says the suspect is expecting charges from this accident as well as an incident on Sunday.

“It looks like he was also arrested by the State Highway Patrol on Sunday for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol so he’ll have multiple charges coming in relation to driving.”

Coury says they’re discussing charges with the prosecutor’s office.

“We could be going with felony assault on a police officer for striking our vehicle, we’ll have felony fleeing and alluding for failing to stop for our signals and we got a couple officers banged up so — we’ll have the assaults on the officers too.”

The suspect was taken to the hospital for minor injuries. The name of the driver has not been released.