Driver was running from Columbus police before crash that killed his child, reports show
The driver whose 7-year-old daughter was killed Tuesday night in Columbus was trying to escape police when he crashed into two other cars on Macon Road at Forrest Road, according to records and police sources.
Columbus police officially have declined comment on the collision. Chief Ricky Boren said his department is leaving the crash investigation to the Georgia State Patrol.
But public records and other sources confirmed the circumstances that led to the wreck and the driver’s arrest.
Mariah Lewis was pronounced dead at 8:35 p.m. at the scene of the crash, where her father, Marcus Lorenzo Lewis, was arrested on outstanding warrants, according to Columbus police reports.
A coroner’s report on the girl’s death said she was ejected onto the pavement by the impact as the car’s driver, wanted by police, tried to evade capture.
Officers were trying to catch Lewis, but they were not in hot pursuit at the time, a police investigator told the Ledger-Enquirer under the condition of anonymity: When plainclothes officers recognized Lewis and asked a patrol unit to stop him, Lewis sped out of the McDonald’s at 3315 Macon Road, going east in the westbound lanes, and the patrol officer was unable to follow him safely, having to go west and make a U-turn first.
As a result, Lewis crashed before police could catch up with him, authorities said.
According to an incomplete accident report from the Georgia Department of Public Safety, Lewis was driving a Ford Fusion the wrong way on Macon Road “at a high rate of speed” when a Nissan Altima making a turn at Forrest Road hit the Fusion’s rear, passenger side.
As the Fusion overturned on the driver’s side, its rear end hit the driver’s side of a Jeep Renegade, the state patrol said.
An arrest report shows Lewis was taken into custody at the scene, on warrants charging him with aggravated assault, second-degree criminal damage to property, criminal trespass, possessing a gun during the commission of a crime, and being a convicted felon with a firearm.
The shooting
Police incident reports show Lewis, who has an extensive criminal record, is alleged to have shot up cars and homes Saturday on Pierpont Avenue, which stretches from Talbotton Road north to 32nd Street in the Jordan-Johnson area.
A police report shows patrol officers were dispatched at 6:54 p.m. Saturday to the avenue’s 2900 block, where a woman reported a bullet had come through her bathroom window and damaged a mirror while she was not home.
Another resident showed officers where a bullet broke a front window of his 2003 Honda CRV, and the rear window was “smashed out,” the report said.
Police reports listed seven other victims and named Lewis as the suspect, with charges matching those on which he was arrested Tuesday.
Lewis has a home address in the 2900 block of Pierpont Avenue, according to his arrest report.
Other police documents related to his arrest include reports that officers were sent Tuesday to Macon Road and Forrest Road between 7 and 8 p.m. to assist in capturing a wanted suspect.
Lewis is to have a Recorder’s Court hearing at 9 a.m. Thursday.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 2:49 PM.