Posted on 08/08/2005 10:14:46 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Monday August 08, 2005
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) A man who left an accident scene was tracked down with the help of some cheerleaders who witnessed the crash and turned his license plate number into a cheer, police said.
Members of the Lincoln High School varsity cheerleading squad from neighboring Ypsilanti were in Ann Arbor for a Universal Cheerleaders Association's camp when they saw the wreck near the University of Michigan campus.
``I knew I was going to not remember it because there was too much going on,'' coach Patricia Clark said Monday on NBC's ``Today.'' ``So, when I ran down the street and got the plate number, I yelled to the girls: 'Remember this!'''
The cheerleaders put their skills to work, chanting the license number.
``The coach just said it and we were saying it over and over, and then it just turned into a big chant since we kept repeating it,'' said Kimmie Ostrowski, a senior captain for the team who also appeared on ``Today.''
According to police reports, a truck hit a car stopped at a traffic light Wednesday, and the impact forced that car into another vehicle, which then hit another one.
The truck driver, found at his home, told officers he didn't think the damage was severe enough to stop, police Lt. Mike Logghe told The Ann Arbor News.
The man wasn't arrested and his name wasn't released, but police said he could face a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident.
LOL!
Cue the obligatory pics that'll be posted soon....
I am betting he pulled a ted kennedy - see, they can't charge you with DUI if you are not there - you can be drunk as a skunk, and claim you slugged a bottle of Vodka when you got home, to "calm your nerves"...
I guess writing is not one of those skills...
"We've got the plate number!! C'mon girls!! "Give me an 'M'! Give me an 'I'! Give me a 'C'! Give me a 'H'! Give me a 'I'! Give me a 'G'! Give me a 'A'! Give me a 'N'! GO COPS!!
It's a standard memory device (although the use in a cheer is probably new), for when you don't have anything to write with.
Photos are going to be difficult to come by, methinks.
No pockets to carry pens or paper in their skimpy uniforms.
Hey, high school age kids at work here....
Perhaps some tool that would make images on a separate substance.
If they had access to a cave and dyes made of mashed plants of course they could create images on the cave walls capable of communicating their experience to others. We all do that.
What they needed was a method that is more portable than cave drawings.
LOL - I bet dispatch got a kick out of that call...
LOL - I bet dispatch got a kick out of that call...
Give us an F! Give us a U!
I'm wondering if one of the ladies involved was named Debbie.
Two bits, four bits,
six bits
a buck,
c'mon cheerleaders!
Give us
a cheer.
Gimme a U as in U-R-B-U-S-T-E-D
Cheerleaders' chant helps identify driver
Friday, August 5, 2005
BY ART AISNER News Staff Reporter
They didn't have a pen or paper handy.
So, Kimmie Ostrowski and the other members of the Lincoln High School varsity cheerleading squad did what came naturally when a driver fled the scene after causing a chain-reaction car crash Wednesday near the University of Michigan campus: They turned the license plate numbers into a cheer.
And they cheered and cheered and cheered, committing the license plate to memory for police while their coaches rendered aid to a woman injured in the crash at Packard and Thompson streets.
"We just started to chant it so we'd remember it and help them get the guy,'' said Ostrowski, a senior captain, who with junior co-captain Amy Sirois led the nine-member squad's impromptu performance until the Ann Arbor Police arrived.
The team was one of 12 high school junior varsity and varsity cheerleading squads from around southeast Michigan and northern Ohio participating in the Universal Cheerleaders Association's four-day Cheer Camp at U-M.
The officers traced the license plate to an Ann Arbor home where the driver once lived. They then obtained his new Ann Arbor address and confronted him there late Wednesday afternoon, said Lt. Mike Logghe. The 30-year-old man was not arrested, but could face misdemeanor charges for leaving the scene of an accident once the report is forwarded to the Ann Arbor City Attorney's Office.
Police reports indicate the man's truck hit the rear of a car stopped at the traffic light at 5:35 p.m. The impact pushed that car into another vehicle, which then hit another one, Logghe said. The driver of the first car that was struck, a 32-year-old Ann Arbor woman, was injured and treated at the scene by paramedics with Huron Valley Ambulance.
Patricia Clark, the squad's coach, said the woman hit her head on the steering wheel and her knee on the dashboard due to the impact, which crushed the trunk of her sedan. She said she used some of the girls' frozen water bottles to soothe the victim while she called police, shouting out the part of the license plate number she could see to the cheerleaders. They stepped into the street to take note of the entire plate.
"We thought he was going to pull over to get out of the truck, but he just bailed, and we were like, 'No way!' '' said Jennifer Smith, 16.
Logghe said the man told officers he did not think the damage was severe enough to stop and reconsidered on his way home, but did not turn around due to heavy traffic.
Coach Clark said it was a bit more than what the girls bargained for when they raised the money to attend the camp through a series of car washes and sponsorships from local businesses. But they learned a valuable lesson, nonetheless.
"Teamwork is what we're learning here and it took a lot of it very quickly to get him caught. I'm very proud of them,'' she said.
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1123252982219690.xml&coll=2
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