James Daves on Paid Leave After Medical Red Light Emergency

by Amy Judd | June 22, 2010 at 12:11 pm

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Chattanooga Police Officer James Daves Has Been Put on Paid Leave While An Investigation is Conducted in to His Arrest of Eric Jesse Wright

Eric Jesse Wright ran two red lights last Wednesday in Chattanooga Tennessee when he was trying to get his wife Aline Bacelar Wright to the hospital as he thought she was suffering from a stroke.

Mr. and Mrs. Wright were at their home last Wednesday night when she started to feel as if she was suffering from a stroke, including symptoms of facial drooping and a numbness in her arms. She had previously lost her leg to cancer and Mr. Wright and his wife are both nurse technicians at Erlanger Hospital. He then decided to take her to the hospital rather than wait for an ambulance as it would take longer.

They got in to their car, called the hospital and Mr. Wright said he drove with his emergency hazards lights on and blew his horn many times as he approached intersections. Officer James Daves was behind the Wright car and according to the Times Free Press, after Mr. Wright ran the first red light at Holtzclaw and McCallie Avenues, Officer Daves and another car had to slam on their breaks so that they did not collide.

This is when the Officer put on his police lights, but Mr. Wright did not stop, ran another red light and then drove in to the hospital.

“The defendant endangered several lives with his reckless and careless driving,” Officer Daves wrote in the affidavit.

The affidavit continues saying that Mr. Wright pushed Officer Daves out of the way when they both got out of their cars "scraping the officer with his fingernails" and telling him it was an emergency while he got his wife out of the car.

Mr. Wright carried his wife into a room of the ER with “no permission” of the staff and caused all doctors and nurses to come running because of the scene he was making, the affidavit states.

Mr. Wright, according to CNN, said that Officer Daves told him he was going to jail and then called him an obscenity. Officer Daves did say that Wright's registration was expired as well.

Mr. Wright was taken in to custody last Friday and has been released on a $7,500 bail, but he has been charged with assault on police, disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, two counts of traffic signals violation and an expired registration. He is required to appear in court on July 9.

Chattanooga Police spokeswoman Lt. Kim Noorbergen told the Times Free Press that Officer Daves will remain on leave until the internal investigation is completed. She said that

drivers still have a legal obligation, even when a life is on the line, to pull over when a police officer turns on the blue lights

“All of this could have been avoided if (Eric Jesse Wright) had just stopped and said, ‘We have a medical emergency,’” Lt. Noorbergen said. “Ninety percent of the time, (a police officer) will get in front of you and escort you.”

The Wrights have now been consulting with lawyers about their case.