An 18-year-old already sitting in the Al Cannon Detention Center on unrelated charges has now been tied to a North Charleston police pursuit from late August, after officers tracked him down behind bars and served him with three arrest warrants. Gregory Tre’Von Parks faces charges of failure to stop for blue lights, failure to yield the right of way, and operating a vehicle with an expired registration.
According to Live 5 News, police allege Parks fled an August traffic stop and led officers on a pursuit that was later terminated. The station reports the incident began shortly after 1 p.m. on Aug. 27, when an officer saw a vehicle fail to yield the right of way while turning left from Gumwood Boulevard onto Rivers Avenue near the 10 Mile community.
A Routine Stop Turns Into a Chase
The officer noticed the vehicle had an expired temporary registration tag and activated blue lights, initiating the traffic stop at Rivers Avenue and Remount Road, the outlet's report states. The officer said he also smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle, though police say Parks denied smoking marijuana inside it.
Parks reportedly told the officer the vehicle was a rental and provided a South Carolina beginner’s permit along with an identification card bearing the same identification number. He also handed over paperwork bearing South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles lettering, but the document contained no vehicle information, per the same account.
Pursuit Through North Charleston Streets
As the officer worked a patrol laptop and a second patrol unit arrived, the vehicle accelerated away from the stop, the report says. It then sped through a connecting street and onto Rivers Avenue before continuing onto Remount Road, Dempsey Avenue, and Baker Drive.
Officers terminated the pursuit as the vehicle turned back into the 10 Mile community, the station notes, and then searched the neighborhood cautiously after slowing down. An officer eventually spotted the suspect’s vehicle abandoned and unoccupied after rounding a bend — with no driver in sight.
Warrants Catch Up at the Detention Center
The trail went cold for weeks, but the North Charleston Police Department’s Warrants Unit located Parks at the Al Cannon Detention Center on Tuesday morning and served him with three arrest warrants there. Police said Parks was already being held at the detention center on unrelated charges when the warrants unit found him, according to the Live 5 News report.
The arrest adds to a string of recent pursuit-related cases in the North Charleston area. ABC News 4 reported that a Charleston County man, Michael Anthony Lewis, was arrested for failing to stop for blue lights following a separate vehicle pursuit, and the outlet also reported that Joshua Rashad Scott was charged with failure to stop for blue lights and sirens, high speed, and filing a false police report after driving away from officers during an attempted traffic stop. Just days earlier, Live 5 News reported that 20-year-old Keith Jeremiah Brown Jr. of North Charleston was charged with failure to stop for blue lights and sirens at high speed and grand larceny after allegedly leading police on a pursuit from North Charleston into West Ashley, according to that outlet's report.
