NC man strikes 2 officers during pursuit through DC, Md. and Va., police say

A North Carolina man eluded police in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, striking a D.C. police officer and crashing into multiple vehicles, including a Virginia State Police car, on the Capital Beltway in Virginia, where he was taken into custody early Thursday morning, according to police.

Titus Mayo, 22, of Winterville, North Carolina, was charged in Virginia with eluding, reckless driving, driving on a suspended license and other traffic-related offenses. Police in D.C. and Prince George’s County, Maryland, told WTOP they are still determining charges.

It started Wednesday night just before 10 p.m. near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Forrester Street, in the Bellevue neighborhood in Southwest D.C., where District police officers tried to pull over the driver of a white Range Rover. The driver refused to stop and struck a D.C. police officer who was on foot, according to Virginia State Police.

The driver sped off, and the D.C. police officer was treated at the hospital for injuries and later released. D.C. police issued a lookout for the vehicle, then described as a white, new model Range Rover with temporary South Carolina tags.

Prince George’s County police spotted the car just after 3:30 a.m. Thursday and tried to pull over the driver, who sped off and led officers on a chase that traveled over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Virginia, according to state police.

Troopers in Virginia then joined the pursuit, which continued onto the southbound Capital Beltway, where state police said Mayo struck a vehicle that had moved to the left shoulder to try and avoid the chase. The driver of that vehicle was taken to the hospital for their injuries.

Mayo then swerved across the lanes of the Beltway and struck a Virginia state trooper’s vehicle, according to state police, who said the trooper had minor injuries but did not go to the hospital.

After the crash, Mayo was arrested and taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries.

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Thomas Robertson

Thomas Robertson is an Associate Producer and Web Writer/Editor at WTOP. After graduating in 2019 from James Madison University, Thomas moved away from Virginia for the first time in his life to cover the local government beat for a small daily newspaper in Zanesville, Ohio.

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