Longs man died after an Horry County police chase. Now his mom wants answers.
Early on a Thursday morning in June, an officer with the Horry County police department watched from his patrol car parked in front of a gas station as a dark sedan sped by at around 100 mph.
The speed limit in the area is 45 mph.
The officer turned his lights and sirens and followed the 2005 Honda Accord east on Highway 9 in the Longs area of Horry County. The county still won’t say what happened next but it ended with the driver of the Honda, 31-year-old Jermaine Jackson, dead.
County officials haven’t answered questions from The Sun News on how long the chase lasted or whether it caused the crash. Dashcam footage has not been released and police chase policies for the county are partially redacted. Through interviews with family and law enforcement, police incident reports and other documents The Sun News tried to piece together what happened that night.
A crash report from the South Carolina Highway Patrol illustrates what might have happened as Jackson turned off the highway and onto Wampee Road.
The crash report is a reflection of what the officer thinks happened to the best of their knowledge, but is not always factually accurate.
Jacksons’ car drifted off the right side of the road, striking a culvert, a utility pole. Jackson then hit a ditch, a tree and finally flipped over and was ejected from the car, according to the report.
An Horry County ambulance took him to Grand Strand Medical Center, where he died. His mother, Selena Jackson, arrived at the hospital around 9 a.m. but it was too late: Her son was gone.
The police chase and ensuing car crash has left Selena with more questions than answers and the lack of transparency from Horry County has her believing that there was foul play.
“I have the right to know what really happened,” she said.
No Closure
Selena got the call around 5 a.m. Thursday. It was Keyairra Cox, whose car Jermaine was driving. Jermaine, her boyfriend, had been in a bad crash.
Selena started calling local hospitals to see where Jermaine was until Cox called around 8 a.m. and told her Jermaine was taken to Grans Strand Medical Center, about 15 miles from the crash site.
The first emergency personnel from Horry County Fire Rescue arrived at the crash site at 4:53 a.m., nine minutes after they were dispatched. Jermaine was found lying on the ground after the wreck by emergency personnel, according to an incident report from Horry County Fire Rescue. A child’s carseat was found near the crash and first responders searched the area for any other passengers but found none.
Jermaine was put into an ambulance and arrived at the emergency room at Grand Strand at 5:25 a.m. and was in “active cardiac arrest,” the hospital told his mother. He died at 5:45 a.m. His cause of death is not clear.
His mother has yet to receive a death certificate and said that the coroner’s office is causing the hold up. The family has also asked the coroner’s office for a toxicology report done on Jermaine and was told it would take months before the report comes back.
“It’s like my son is still alive,” Selena said, “and they aren’t giving me any closure or any answers.”
The Horry County Coroner’s office routinely sends out news releases when it has identified victims of fatal car crashes. In this case the coroner’s office never publicly announced Jermaine’s name. The Sun News asked Robert Edge, the Horry County coroner, to identify the victim of the crash, which he did on Aug. 26, more than two months after Jermaine’s death.
When asked by reporters why the coroner’s office hadn’t sent out a press release with the victim’s name, Edge responded “some people get them, some people don’t. It’s just a problem we have and I don’t know what the answer is.”
Police narrative
After the crash South Carolina Highway Patrol sent an audio recording of a news release about the crash, a common practice for fatal car wrecks.
According to the release, the crash happened around 4:45 a.m. on Highway 57 near Harshaw Lane. Sonny Collins, a sergeant with highway patrol, detailed the crash and said the driver was “attempting to allude law enforcement” and crashed sometime after. He said any information leading up to the crash can be obtained from the Horry County Police Department.
A police report from that night says the HCPD officer was parked at a Tiger Mart on Highway 9 and Highway 905 when he saw a car speeding east on Highway 9 towards Little River. He turned his lights and siren on but the driver did not stop. The report stops there.
Selena Jackson received a crash report from highway patrol. She said she was told by highway patrol that dashcam footage was turned off after Horry County police stopped pursuing her son.
Brian Lee, a spokesperson from highway patrol, said that usually when lights and sirens are activated on a patrol car the dashcam turns on as well, and that when the lights and sirens are turned off, so is the dashcam. Dashcam footage from the chase is available, according to Horry County, but it was not clear how long police pursued Jermaine or at what speeds. The Sun News submitted a Freedom of Information request for the footage.
Horry County’s redacted policy
So far, the county has released only an incident report that does not mention a pursuit or a crash. The day after the deadly police chase, The Sun News asked Mikayla Moskov, spokesperson for the Horry County Police Department, where reporters could access the agency’s policy on vehicle pursuits.
Moskov wrote back, in a text message, stating that the Horry County Police Department’s policies were not available for viewing online, “mainly due to the website redesign currently underway.” Moskov’s response implied that the policy would typically be available online for the public to view.
Moskov went on to instruct a Sun News reporter to send a Freedom of Information request for the department’s policies.
The Sun News requested a copy of the Horry County Police Department’s written policies on vehicle pursuits. Similar policies were requested from North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach, Conway, Horry and Georgetown County Sheriffs offices.
Initially, Horry County sent back an eight-page document with four of the pages were completely redacted. When asked for an explanation of the redactions, Aaron Spelbring, FOIA manager for the county, cited an exemption from disclosure under FOIA laws.
The law states that matters exempt from disclosure under FOIA law include information that “would disclose current techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose current guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure would risk circumvention of the law.”
After another request from The Sun News, the county sent a less redacted policy, only redacting a section on why police would stop a pursuit. Horry County was the only department to redact parts of its policy and North Myrtle Beach police did not send a policy, citing similar FOIA exemptions. All other agencies sent The Sun News unredacted policies.
Other portions of the county vehicle pursuit policy that are not redacted include sections that outline the department’s policies on when to initiate a police chase and environmental considerations. Some things police must consider are “the danger created by the pursuit being less than the immediate or potential danger to the public if the suspect remains at large.” Environmental considerations include time of day, weather conditions and traffic conditions.
A pursuit review report, written afterwards, must include how the pursuit began and ended, the actions of police officers involved, and any injuries or damage sustained in the pursuit, according to county policy. The Sun News has sent a FOIA request for the pursuit review in this case.
Jermaine Jackson
Jermaine was a father of seven and his mother’s youngest child.
“If he could help you he would help you,” his mother said.
When he crashed, Jermaine was heading home from his girlfriend’s house, where he spent the day with her and their children.
Jermaine had been arrested in 2014 when he pleaded guilty to minor drug possession. He was required to pay a fine and court fees.
Selena’s social media pages are full of tributes to her son. In August, for Jermaine’s birthday, she hosted a celebration of life for family and friends still mourning the loss.
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 3:05 PM.
