A teen was taken to UF Health-The Villages Hospital Brownwood ER after crashing her mother’s car into a chain link fence.
Ja’Keriya Shontay Thompson, 18, of Ocala, had been driving the Chevrolet passenger car shortly before midnight Wednesday when a Wildwood police officer began following her vehicle. She “began accelerating at a high rate of speed” northbound on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department. The officer discontinued the pursuit, but soon heard “a loud crash noise” and saw the car he had been pursuing had crashed into a chain link fence in the 300 block of Terry Street. Two men ran from the vehicle. A female was found in the back seat and a second female was found in the trunk. Thompson fled the scene, too.
Thompson’s mother arrived on the scene and called her daughter, ordering her to return to the scene of the crash. When Thompson returned, she was transported by ambulance to the ER. She told nurses she had been traveling 40 to 45 miles per hour before striking the fence.
Once she was medically cleared, Thompson was arrested on charges of hit and run and fleeing to elude law enforcement. She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $5,250 bond.
