Collins Bates, who is 29 years old, is said to have shot someone in a restaurant near Myrtle Beach and then forced a woman to drive him away.
A South Carolina police department is honoring one of its officers after a traffic stop led to the escape of a woman who was reportedly being forced to drive a shooting suspect away from the crime scene.
In a Facebook post for “Way to Go Wednesday,” the North Myrtle Beach Police Department praised Officer Wallace for her efforts while working U.S. Highway 17 in North Myrtle Beach early on May 28.
Around 5:30 a.m. that Sunday, Wallace pulled over a white Jeep that had gone through a red light at a highway crossing.
Wallace was talking to the people in the car when he noticed that the woman driving the Jeep “looked upset.” When the man in the passenger seat wasn’t looking her way, she mouthed “help me” to Wallace several times in silence.
The officer heard the woman, took the man out of the car, and put him in the back seat of her police car.
Wallace then went back to the Jeep and talked to the woman. She told him “frantically” that the guy had just shot someone.
Shortly after that, dispatch put out a BOLO (Be On the Lookout) warning over the radio for a car that was involved in a shooting outside The Waterway House, a diner in the Myrtle Beach area.
WMBF says that the guy, who was later found to be 29-year-old Collins Bates, was arrested in connection with the killing. Police in North Myrtle Beach said a gun was found under his seat, which was not allowed.
WMBF got a story from the Horry County police department that said Bates shot someone in the stomach outside the restaurant and then forced the woman in the Jeep to drive him away from the scene.
WMBF said that the same police report noted that the gun in the car was the same size as the shell found at the killing scene.
Bates is in the J. Reuben Long Detention Center because he is accused of many things, such as trying to kill someone and taking someone hostage. He is being kept in jail without bail.
The department said Wallace “actively patrolled” the city’s streets until the last 30 minutes of her shift.
North Myrtle Beach police wrote, “Our department and our community are lucky to have Officer Wallace.” “Well done!”
