Crime & Safety

News Nearby: Series of Hit and Runs Results in Fatality on Highway 78 in Snellville

The driver, a 70-year-old man, was allegedly drunk, and may have intentionally chased down the vehicles.

Snellville and Gwinnett County Police responded to a devastating scene late Wednesday night, Jan. 23, after a drunk driver caused a total of 15 accidents stretching from Memorial Drive in DeKalb to Walton Court in Snellville.

According to Snellville's Cpl. Jake Smith, the driver ended his rampage when he crashed into John Boy's restaurant on Highway 78. The last crash, on Walton, resulted in a fatality. 

Snellville Police were out in the area serving warrants; the driver nearly hit an officer's vehicle on Hewatt Road before causing the fatality on Walton. The driver, driving a large truck, attempting to flee the scene but Snellville Police were able to detain him.

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The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department shows that Michael Owen Snider, of Stone Mountain, was booked three minutes past midnight on Jan. 24 for DUI - alcohol, following too closely, reckless driving, vehicular homicide and serious injury by vehicle.

According to 11Alive, the driver, a 70-year-old man, may have been intentially trying to hit vehicles.

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"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 told 11Alive. ""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." 

The name of the fatality, reported to be a 60-year-old woman, has not yet been released.


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