TAMPA – Police say a driver left chaos across St. Pete Sunday evening, with two separate crashes involving multiple cars.
Mike Shortell and his neighbors won’t soon forget an abandoned truck crashed on the corner of their street on 20th St. and 1st Ave. N.
What they’re saying:
“We’re all like, what the heck happened? Where is this person? And the police were going up and down the street here.”
About an hour later, Shortell’s wife heard something alarming in a neighbor’s yard.
“There was a man sitting on the ground, just yelling and saying, ‘I can’t feel my legs’. And we come outside, we see him. The owners of that house were a little terrified, because there was a guy sitting right outside.”
Police arrested Johnerik Track that night, but only for a parole violation, not for the crash.
“And they were saying, well, he wasn’t charged. That no one actually saw him driving,” said Shortell.
Not far away, another victim was dealing with the fallout.
Phynia, whose last name we aren’t using, was driving a Prius when the Dodge Ram slammed into her car at a red light on 16th Street N and 1st Ave North.Â
“I just see these bright lights in my rearview.” She turned to her friend in the passenger seat. “We both just looked at each other, very worried because we had nowhere to go. There were cars in front of us. I think we both thought, one of us is like, going to be severely injured in this. And then it just happened all at once.”
She suffered a swollen lip, required dental work, and her car was totaled. Other vehicles were also damaged, and police reported at least one other minor injury.
Phynia posted about the crash online, hoping someone could help identify the driver.
It went viral, receiving more than a million views.
“It just felt like everybody was kind of rallying behind it,” she said. She said lots of people reached out to her with pictures and video, including Shortell.
Neighbors said the social media push became key in pressuring for accountability.
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By Wednesday night, police confirmed Track is now facing charges directly tied to the crashes, including:
Leaving the scene of a crash with injury, a felonyLeaving scene of crash w/ property damage (misd.) three countsReckless driving w/ property damage/injury (misd)
Track is currently in the Pinellas County Jail.
Police continued canvassing the neighborhood for additional doorbell camera video on Thursday.
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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Genevieve Curtis.