Police: Morris Plains man slams into Morristown store, flees wrong way, then smashes parked car

This vacant Market Street storefront sustained heavy damage when a car sailed through it. The incident remains under investigation. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
This vacant Market Street storefront sustained heavy damage when a car sailed through it. The incident remains under investigation. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
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This vacant Market Street storefront sustained heavy damage when a car sailed through it. The incident remains under investigation. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
This vacant Market Street storefront sustained heavy damage when a car sailed through it. The incident remains under investigation. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

A Morris Plains man charged with drunk driving had to be handcuffed to a stretcher after driving through a Morristown storefront, fleeing the wrong way on a one-way street, and smashing into a parked car, Morristown police said.

Jeffrey S. Atkins, 34, who told police he had consumed 12 beers, according to Officer Diego Alvarado, “continued to be combative as he was placed on the stretcher,” so he was handcuffed to it, the officer reported. It took a court order to get a blood sample from Atkins for DWI analysis.

Atkins crashed his 2002 Lexus 300 through the facade of the vacant Accents on Knits store on Market Street  just after 1 am on Thursday, March 26, 2015, according to police.

If the vehicle had been traveling a little faster, it might have shot clear through the building and onto Bank Street, said Harry Simon, the landlord.

Police were responding to a report about an erratic driver in the vicinity of Maple Avenue and Market Street when they got numerous calls that a vehicle had crashed into a building and now was fleeing the wrong way on Market Street, toward Mount Kemble Avenue.

Officer Alvarado discovered the disabled Lexus on Mount Kemble, near Entrance Avenue, on the wrong side of the road, facing south and crashed into a parked Nissan Maxima on the northbound side. The collision pushed the Maxima onto the sidewalk.

Both airbags were deployed in the Lexus, the engine was running, and the transmission was in reverse, the officer reported.

The Lexus still had “pieces of sheet rock, plate glass window and bricks” from the store between its hood and windshield, according to Officer Eric Petr.

Atkins was was sitting alone on the curb beside the driver’s side door of the Lexus, with blood on his scalp and hands, police reported.

Officer Alvarado observed a “strong odor” of alcohol and bloodshot, watery eyes on Atkins, who “was swaying from side to side as he sat on the curb.” Several times he lost his balance while attempting to stand.

Atkins muttered that it only was a “minor accident,” and said he had dropped off a friend at Sona Thirteen and was going home when he had the accident, police reported.

When an ambulance crew from the Morristown Fire Department arrived and advised Atkins that he needed to go to the hospital, he “became combative and demanded someone drive him home.”

He was arrested, and police accompanied him in the ambulance.

When Atkins refused to consent to the drawing of blood samples at the Morristown Medical Center, Sgt. Mike Molnar contacted Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Melanie Smith, who obtained a warrant from Municipal Judge Michael Noonan to have the blood sample drawn “in a medically acceptable manner.”

Atkins was charged with driving under the influence of drugs or liquor, and reckless driving

Harry Simon, the owner of the storefront, which has been vacant since December, said he was not aware of the damage until the next morning, when he went to work at his Simon Gallery nearby.

“I got a call from a friend of mine… he asked me if I saw the knitting shop,” Simon recounted. “I said no. He said, ‘You better take a look at it.’”

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