DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — A man has been arrested in connection to an incident involving a speeding black Ford Mustang Sunday during the Hillside High School Homecoming Parade.
Meanwhile, two Durham teens were arrested after they were driving dirt bikes recklessly and tried to enter the parade, police said.
In the Ford Mustang incident, Jerrie Amir Brooks, 23, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, flee/elude arrest in motor vehicle, and reckless driving — wanton disregard. He is currently in the Durham County jail without bond.
In a video captured by Cassey Bailey, a group of dancers are performing for the crowd when the car flies by. She said it must’ve been going about 60 miles per hour.
“All of a sudden, this car just comes ‘woosh,’ a Mustang,” Bailey said. “And so, I’m filming and it just happened to be the wrong time and the right moment.”
Her daughter Taliyah Rogers is in that same video and the Mustang missed her by inches.
“It zoomed past me and I felt a lot of wind so it just put me in shock for a moment,” Rogers, a dancer at Southern High School, said. “I didn’t know what to do and I was scared.”
Asia Mitchell livestreams the event every year and caught it on camera. Her daughter marched through the parade.
“The first thing that came across my mind was the Raleigh parade, somebody getting injured and my daughter,” Mitchell said. “So I ended my live right after that because I wanted to make sure my daughter was safe.”
Other parade-goers tell CBS 17 that the vehicle nearly hit several officers, the mayor and multiple City Council members.
Parents are calling for increased security and law enforcement at events like these.
“It really placed [Taliyah’s] life as well as her other dance sister’s lives and other band members — just everyone, the pedestrians, the public, everybody — in danger,” Bailey said.
There’s no word on exactly how the driver managed to get within the parade route and CBS 17 is still waiting to hear more details from police and the sheriff’s office.
Moments later, a Durham County Sheriff’s Office vehicle can be seen and heard chasing after the vehicle.
N.C. Central University police arrested the person, CBS 17 learned Monday. No further information on the arrested person has been released.
This incident happened in the same parade that two dirt bikers tried to “insert themselves” into, Durham police said. The pair were arrested.
The dirt bike incident was reported just before 4:35 p.m. when a Durham County Sheriff’s Office deputy was handling traffic for the parade, according to a news release from Durham police.
Durham police had said Sunday that they were “not investigating or otherwise aware of any other vehicles.”
