A Newton County man was rescued from his burning pickup truck by Eatonton police officers, and then handcuffed and taken to jail.
Officer Kevin Malloy was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Eatonton Police Department around 9:50 p.m. Saturday when a 2017 white Chevrolet Silverado went past at “a high rate of speed with the engine revved up,” according to Malloy’s incident report.
The pickup was traveling so fast that when it came to a stop sign at an intersection, the brakes locked up as it slid through the intersection, Malloy wrote in his report. The driver of the truck, later identified as Jeremy Keith Hitson, turned onto a one-way roadway and drove into oncoming traffic, causing a vehicle to swerve out of the pickup’s path to avoid collision.
By then, Malloy had jumped into his patrol vehicle to go look for the pickup. As he drove around searching, 911 calls came in reporting the speeding Silverado being driven recklessly. Some of the callers reported that the pickup had crashed into a 2015 Chevrolet Malibu and a 2018 Nissan Sentra on East Marion Street and continued going.
As EPD’s Sgt. James Gaither assisted the two drivers of the Malibu and Sentra. Officer Malloy followed the direction the 911 callers said the truck went. When he got to the 500 block of East Marion Street, where the road dead ends, Malloy saw “the faint glow of taillights approximately 150 feet into the woods,” he wrote in his report.
“The vehicle was wrecked and trapped in a dried-up creek bed area,” Malloy said, yet “Hitson was still attempting to drive the vehicle.”
Malloy ran up to the pickup and yelled for the driver to “let me see your hands,” he said.
“Jeremy then put his hand out of the driver’s door window, and I placed a handcuff on his left wrist,” Malloy added. “I attempted to open the door multiple times, but the door did not open.”
It was then that Malloy noticed smoke coming from the vehicle.
“The smoke rapidly became very thick and I could see an orange glow coming from under the vehicle,” Malloy said. “I backed up to look under it and saw the grass underneath the truck was on fire and the fire had spread to the truck itself.”
With renewed urgency, Malloy opened the driver’s door of the pickup, “but Jeremy was not willingly getting out,” he noted.
So, Malloy reportedly grabbed Hitson’s arm and pulled him out of the burning Silverado. As he assisted Hitson to the ground, Malloy yelled at him to put his hands behind his back, but Malloy did not cooperate.
“I was yelling at him that his truck was on fire and the fire was progressively getting bigger, but Jeremy appeared to be under the influence of a narcotic and was not complying with my lawful commands,” Malloy said in his report.
After getting Hitson in handcuffs, Malloy “attempted several times to get him to his feet and away from the vehicle as it was burning.”
Meanwhile, Officer Chad Burket rescued Hitson’s dog, a beagle, from the back seat of the burning truck and placed the dog in the care of Putnam County Animal Control officials. Burket also called the Eatonton Fire Department and Putnam County EMS to the scene.
Malloy finally got Hitson to stand up and walk, and he was placed in the back seat of the patrol vehicle. He was checked out by EMS personnel, who told the officers that Hitson was okay and didn’t need any medical treatment.
So, Malloy reportedly asked Hitson what he was under the influence of.
“He said he’d been on mushrooms and meth all day and didn’t even know how he got here from Covington,” Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell said. “These officers risked their lives to get this guy out of the burning truck. He’d hit two cars, and the pieces of the cars were still under his truck.”
Jeremy Keith Hitson, 45, of Oxford, Georgia, was taken to Putnam County Jail without incident. He was charged with one count DUI – drugs, less safe, first offense; two counts of hit and run; two counts of violation of driver’s duty to stop at or return to the scene of an accident; one count violation of one-way roadway; one count driving too fast for conditions; two counts failure to stop at a stop sign; and two counts reckless driving.
“Officers Malloy, Burket, and Nathan Mason did a good job,” Cardwell added. “Especially Malloy, he did a really good job on it. This guy’s coming here high as hell and driving like 80 miles per hour, running stop signs, and then when they get to him, he’s incoherent. Why was he even driving?
“They told him his truck was on fire, and he just sat there, and they had to drag him out. He didn’t even remember coming to Eatonton, but he’s facing all these charges, so he’ll remember now.”