Traffic stop turns into long list of charges for Memphis man
Moving violation leads to felony drug charges for wanted fugitive
By Ralph Hardin
news@theeveningtimes.com
It’s always a good idea to obey the traffic laws. If you’re a wanted man with no drivers license and drugs in the car?
Well, it would be a pretty ill advised to do a slow-roll through a stop sign while traveling through Crittenden County.
But that’s exactly what happened to one Memphis man who was pulled over for failing to stop at a stop sign. That one moving violation eneded up landing him in jail with a laundry list of charges.
Michael S. Chalmers, 29, of Memphis, Tennessee, was pulled over in Marion for failure to stop on the evening of Sunday, April 14. But Chalmers wasn’t eager to pull over. That’s when he added speeding and fleeing to his violations. And that was only the beginning of Chalmers’s run-in with the law.
In attempting to evade law enforcement, Chalmers began to weave into and out of traffic, netting a reckless driving citation to his tab. Once police were able to get the Memphis man to pull the vehicle over, it became readily apparent as to wht he had been reluctant to stop and chat with law enforcement, It turned out that Chalmers was driving on a suspended drivers license. Also, his license plate was registered to another vehicle, he had no proof of registration and no proof of insurance.
The fact that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt didn’t help matters. It also didn’t help that he had an open container of alcohol in the vehicle — another charge or two. He refused to submit to a field sobriety test but he did have concerns far beyond a DUI.
Chalmers, it was discovered, was already a wanted man, a fugitive from justice out of Shelby County, Tennessee.
Armed with this knowledge, police searched the vehicle, inside of which were multiple illegal drugs in various quantities and stolen property, which he claimed he did not know was stolen.
By the time police arrested Chalmers, he was looking at more than a dozen felony and misdemeanor charges and taken to the Crittenden County Detention Center for processing by officers Dairren Evans and Lillian Strayhorn.
In all, Chalmers was charged with:
• Failure to Stop or Yield
• Speeding
• Seat Belt Use Required
• Reckless Driving
• Fleeing
• Driving While License is Suspended or Revoked
• Ficticious License Plates
• No Proof of Ownership
• No Proof of Liability Insurance • Open Container of Alcohol
• Refusal to Submit to BAC • Fugitive from Justice
• Theft by Receiving
• Misdemeanor Possession of a Controlled Substance
• Possession of a Controlled Substance That Is Not Meth or Cocaine, with Purpose to Deliver
• Possession of Meth or Co-
See CHARGES, page A2
CHALMERS CHARGES
From page A1
caine, with Purpose to Deliver, Greater than 2 grams but less than 10 grams
• Possession of Meth or Cocaine, with Purpose to Deliver, Greater than 10 grams but less than 200 grams
• Felony Possession of a Schedule VI Controlled Substance with Purpose to Deliver Chalmers made his initial court appearance on the 18 charged against him on Monday, April 15 before Judge Fred Thorne in West Memphis District Court. Several of the charged were bound over to Circuit Court. He is currently in custody at the Crittenden County Jail on a more than $52,000 bond stemming from his charges awaiting his next hearing.
