Porsche Panamera
New York, NY

A 24-year-old man wrecked a 2012 Porsche Panamera while fleeing an officer approaching on foot in the West Village, police said. The driver of the Porsche blew through a red light at Christopher Street while driving southbound on Washington Street about 2:15 a.m. on March 9, police said. Officers in a marked NYPD van turned on their lights and sirens and pulled him over, but as one officer, Matthew O'Brien, stepped out of the van and started walking toward the Porsche, the driver sped off southbound on Washington Street, police said. O'Brien said the man was driving 120 miles per hour with a passenger in the car, swerving around another car as he tore down Washington Street. About two minutes later, a sergeant with the Internal Affairs Bureau who was at Washington and Watts streets heard a loud noise and looked up to see the Porsche crashed on the sidewalk, O'Brien said in court testimony. O'Brien said the sergeant, Idris Guven, told him that he saw someone jump out of the passenger side of the car and run off. O'Brien got to Watts Street and approached the car to find the airbags deployed, and the 24-year-old driver with injuries to the left side of his body, including a broken left hip. The majority of the damage to the car was on the driver's side, O'Brien said. O'Brien said when he asked the driver for his license, the driver said he didn't have it with him. He ran the driver's name and learned his license had been suspended for failure to answer a New York summons. (The suspension occurs automatically by computer within four weeks of a failure to answer, O'Brien explained in court papers.) O'Brien said the license was suspended was for failing to pay a driver's assessment fee, which a person is obligated to pay the Department of Motor Vehicles if they are convicted of certain traffic offenses or accumulate six or more points on their driving record within 18 months. O'Brien said the driver's license had been revoked for at least one year after he was convicted of driving without car insurance, and that he had also been convicted of speeding or other misdemeanors three times within an 18-month period. The driver was charged in Manhattan Criminal Court with reckless endangerment in the second degree, unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle in the third degree, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree, reckless driving and unlicensed driving. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.