911 calls capture chaotic moments after House Speaker Tim Moore’s vehicle was rammed
Audio from emergency calls depicts the chaotic situation House Speaker Tim Moore and others traveling with him found themselves in last month, after their unmarked police SUV was rammed from behind several times on a highway.
The two 911 calls reporting the crash, obtained by The News & Observer through a records request, were made from inside the vehicle carrying Moore, state Rep. David Willis and Dan Gurley, Moore’s deputy chief of staff. The driver, Jason Perdue, a General Assembly police officer, pursued the pickup truck that slammed into them, his SUV’s blue lights flashing.
In the audio, the names of the callers are redacted, and their voices are distorted, but a voice that appears to be Moore’s tells a dispatcher that they’re following the pickup truck on U.S. Highway 64, and asks for a trooper to respond so they can get the other driver to pull over. The police vehicle’s siren can be heard in the background.
“He’s running from you?” the dispatcher asks.
“Yes, I’ve got General Assembly police, my officer is here driving, he’s a retired trooper as well.”
The siren continues to ring in the background as Perdue is heard on another call telling a different dispatcher that someone had just slammed into their SUV four times:
“We were driving down the road, we were in the right-hand lane, traveling down the road, and they came up behind us and struck us just several times for no reason, I don’t know why.”
Authorities later arrested and charged 38-year-old James Matthew Brogden of Goldsboro in the incident.
According to the Highway Patrol, Brogden was taken to a hospital for evaluation before being booked on several misdemeanor charges including speeding to elude arrest; hit and run; and driving while impaired.
First Sgt. Christopher Knox, a spokesperson for the Highway Patrol, said that a preliminary investigation “indicated that impairment was a factor with regard to Mr. Brogden.”
Driver pulls over after highway chase
Moore, Willis and Gurley were returning to Raleigh on the night of Feb. 23 after attending a series of events in Wilson when Brogden allegedly slammed into their SUV multiple times. None of them, nor Perdue, was injured in the crash.
In an interview with The News & Observer the next morning, Moore described how quickly it happened.
“Imagine this: We’re on Highway 64 coming in, at decent highway speeds, when a car — bam! — comes up behind us and hits us once,” Moore said. “I was like, ‘What the hell is that? Bam, hits us again, bam, hits us a third time.”
In the audio, the 911 callers keep dispatchers updated with their location, as they pass mile markers and exits while continuing to follow the pickup truck, a gray Chevrolet S10.
“I’ve got a trooper coming down I-540,” the dispatcher says.
“We are approaching exit 7 right now. He is now stopping,” the voice that appears to be Moore’s says, as Perdue pulls over their SUV to the shoulder and stops behind the pickup truck.
A dispatcher asks Perdue to confirm if the pickup has also stopped or continued driving.
“We were just following at a safe distance, the truck voluntarily slowed down and pulled over, stopped in the median,” Perdue says. “And so once he pulled over into the median, I backed off, I’ve got my blues on and everything just so we don’t get hit or anything.”
Perdue also tells the dispatcher he’s going to stay in his SUV and won’t approach the pickup until the troopers arrive.
While they wait for a trooper to arrive, Moore and the others in the SUV go over how many times they were hit. Someone says the other driver “came out of nowhere,” and the voice that appears to be Moore’s replies, “I think that was intentional.”
A few minutes later, the dispatcher tells Perdue that a trooper should arrive in about two minutes.
Moore praised Perdue for his safe driving
After being charged, Brogden was released Feb. 24 on an unsecured bond. He’s scheduled to appear in Wake County court on Friday at 2 p.m.
Talking to reporters later that day outside his office at the Legislative Building, Moore said he and the others were initially worried they were being targeted, but that it seemed clear later that the person was impaired.
“I think this person, from what I’ve seen, was just so impaired to such an extent that he was just ‘out there,’ and it could have been anybody,” Moore said.
Moore also said he was grateful an experienced police officer was driving the SUV when it was hit.
“I can’t say enough good things about how Officer Perdue handled it. I mean, he just stayed calm in the situation,” Moore said. “He kept control of the car, because if somebody didn’t know what they were driving or just weren’t trained, I mean, it could have gone south in so many ways, because it was (hit) hard.”
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This story was originally published March 13, 2023 at 12:15 PM.
