MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – An attempted afternoon traffic stop on Interstate 95 led to a high-speed, wrong-way chase down Ives Dairy Road in northeast Miami-Dade Monday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A Miami Gardens man is now facing a felony charge.
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According to an FHP arrest report, a state trooper conducting “stationary enforcement” for vehicles riding on the shoulder just before 5 p.m. saw Marcelo Smith-Maycock, 62, driving on the shoulder in a grey sedan.
Smith-Maycock, after seeing the trooper, changed lanes and went back on the highway, the report states.
“I stopped traffic and positioned myself in front of his vehicle, directing him to pull over to the right-paved shoulder,” the arresting trooper wrote.
But the trooper wrote that Smith-Maycock “disregarded my lawful order and drove around me continuing south on I-95.”
Authorities said Smith-Maycock exited onto Ives Dairy Road “at high rates of speed” and “drove on the wrong side of the road coming head-on with westbound traffic.”
They said Smith-Maycock also ran a traffic light. The trooper wrote that he came to a stop near Northeast 14th Avenue after he got behind him and said, over his speakers “if he continued to flee I would use the precision immobilization technique,” colloquially known as a PIT maneuver.
The trooper had Smith-Maycock exit the vehicle at gunpoint, the report states, and placed him under arrest for fleeing and eluding at high speed.
Smith-Maycock showed “great remorse” once under arrest, the report states. A statement to the trooper was redacted from the arrest report.
Troopers said he did not have a valid driver’s license, for which he was cited.
Jail records show that Smith-Maycock, listed in the arrest report as a Panamanian national, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $2,500 bond as of Tuesday.