Nashville Officer Dragged By ATV Says He Never Tackled Driver

The Metro police officer who was dragged by an ATV last weekend says that despite what the video may show, he did not grab ahold of the rider and try to tackle him. 

Sgt. John Bourque spoke to reporters for the first time on Wednesday. He says he thought he might get run over by the ATV if he hadn’t grabbed on after being struck by it.

“So I grabbed the handle bars and pulled myself up on it,” he says. 

When that wasn’t working he grabbed the driver’s arm, only to be dragged and flung from the vehicle. The officer sustained only minor injuries. But police say the group of riders, who descended on Broadway, zigzagging between cars, were violating a number of rules of the road.

For one, they are off-road vehicles not registered for street use, Bourque says.

“They were riding wheelies, which are not allowed. When they turned around they were all going east in a westbound lane, that is also illegal,” he added. “Driving between cars is illegal, they were doing that as well.” 

Many also had no windshields or turn signals, officials say. Don Aaron, a spokesman for Metro Police says the department is working on a strategy to combat the groups. He wouldn’t cite specifics, only that if any similar incident happens again the department will be prepared. 

But Terry Key, the founder of the Edgehill Bike Club, says bicycles and dirt bikes and ATVs can have a positive role in communities. “Bike Life”, as he calls it, gets kids off the street and out of their neighborhood, which for those living in concentrated poverty can have a life-changing impact. It did for him, he says. 

“If we try to get along and try to understand each other’s cultures and to grow, we should all be able to come around the table and come together and come to some kind of terms,” Key says. “Because as you know, ‘Bike Life’ won’t die, they multiply.” 

Police say many of the riders were not actually from Nashville and that they had brought the vehicles into the city on pick-up trucks.

Police announced later Wednesday that they’d arrested a man for allegedly dragging Sgt. Bourque. They identify him as Walter Moss of Springfield.