The 24-year-old driver of a car involved in a fatal crash after a high-speed chase with Anne Arundel Police was arrested Friday, more than a year after the incident.

Meziah Johnson, a Baltimore resident who spent the weekend in the Jennifer Road Detention Center, was charged with multiple felonies and traffic violations, including negligent manslaughter, drug possession with the intent to distribute and impaired driving. He is scheduled to appear in district court Tuesday for a bail review, according to the Maryland Judiciary.

Johnson’s arrest comes nearly a month after Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced the indictments of the two officers who followed him, Cpls. Eddie Vasquez, 29, and Kiernan Schnell, 27.

According to court records, just after midnight Dec. 7, 2023, Vasquez began pursuing several vehicles he saw speeding along Fort Smallwood Road, toward the Stoney Creek Drawbridge in Pasadena. Both he and Schnell, who joined the chase in a separate cruiser, singled out a speeding white sedan they later learned had been reported stolen.

All three vehicles dodged others at speeds surpassing 100 mph, the state alleges.

Soon after the sedan crossed the drawbridge, it crashed into a utility pole, approximately 3.5 miles from where Vasquez first saw it. Johnson, the driver, was taken to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries, while his passenger, 22-year-old Damione Gardner, was pronounced dead at the scene.

After reviewing the state’s evidence that the officers had misrepresented what led to the crash, a grand jury issued misconduct charges against Vasquez and Schnell on Dec. 6. State investigators found that “immediately following the crash, both officers made factual misrepresentations and material omissions about their actions and circumstances related to the crash and concealed the pursuit,” according to a news release from the state attorney general’s office.

Johnson, court records show, was indicted the same day as the officers, though his criminal case was not made public at the time.

After getting Johnson out of the sedan, first responders confiscated more than 9 pounds of suspected marijuana in plastic bags from the back seat and trunk, according to charging documents. Police said they also found more than 13 grams of suspected heroin gel capsules and nearly 3 grams of suspected crack cocaine at the scene.

According to the Maryland Judiciary, hours before the fatal crash, Johnson was convicted of eluding a police officer in Baltimore County and barred from driving in the state.

He now faces three felonies, including negligent manslaughter, four misdemeanors and four traffic offenses, including driving without a license. A second charge related to Gardner’s death, criminally negligent manslaughter, is listed among the misdemeanors, while the other felonies accuse Johnson of narcotics possession and theft.

As of Monday afternoon, an attorney has not yet been assigned to represent Johnson.

The cases against Vasquez and Schnell mark the first time the attorney general’s ; Independent Investigations Division will prosecute a law enforcement officer. Established in 2021, the IID investigates any incident involving police that ends in either death or life-threatening injury.

A follow-up law in 2022 granted the IID prosecutorial authority in incidents that took place on or after Oct. 1, 2023. The only other time an IID investigation led to a criminal case involved a 2022 fatal crash in Baltimore City. The city’s state’s attorney’s office handled that case.

In a statement Monday, the Anne Arundel County Fraternal Order of Police expressed “serious concerns” with the charges against Vasquez and Schnell, describing them as an attempt to “redefine” an offense generally applied to abuses of power or acts of corruption.

“The chilling effect that this indictment alone will have on police officers’ desire to proactively enforce the laws of our great state places us all in danger,” the statement read. “The FOP has spoken out against the Office of the Attorney General having the authority to investigate, criminally charge, and prosecute police officers for fear of this very type of indictment. Not one that seeks to hold officers accountable, but one that seeks to hold officers to an impossible standard of perfection.”

When last month’s indictments were announced, Anne Arundel Police Chief Amal Awad said after reviewing “all of the evidence,” the county department was “not aware of any conduct” by Vazquez or Schnell that rose to the level of a criminal offense.

After reviewing the FOP’s statement, the attorney general’s office declined to comment Monday.

Schnell’s defense attorney, Peter O’Neill, said in a phone call that his client did nothing wrong.

“Cpl. Schnell was attempting to do his job on the day of this incident by enforcing traffic laws and, frankly, did nothing but try to protect the citizens of this county,” O’Neill said.

Vasquez and Schnell are both scheduled for hearings in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court on Feb. 28.

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