Records: Detroit Man Accused Of Killing Kids While Fleeing Police Is A Fugitive
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A 29-year-old man facing charges for killing two children while fleeing from police is a fugitive with a lengthy criminal history, according to state records.
Lorenzo Harris' criminal past stretches back a decade and includes resisting police, assault, weapons and stolen property offenses.
Harris went to prison in 2006 for possession of methamphetamine and was denied parole later that year. Harris was eventually paroled in 2007 before he was arrested that November on a weapons offense. He returned to prison in 2008 and was denied parole three more times – in 2008, 2011 and 2012 – before being paroled in 2013, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. Harris was released to the public on February 25, 2014 and absconded parole the very next day.
Officials hadn't seen or heard from Harris until he was involved in a police chase that ended in a deadly crash on Detroit's east side on Wednesday evening.
The chase began about 7:30 p.m. when patrol officers in a neighborhood near Warren Avenue and East Outer Drive reported seeing someone in a red Chevy Camaro with a handgun.
"The information I have right now is that the suspects in the car made eye contact with the officer," Police Chief James Craig told reporters. "The one officer saw a weapon ... at the same time the suspect took off at a high rate of speed."
Officers activated their siren and attempted to pull the vehicle over, but the suspects took off and a chase ensued — reaching speeds of up to 95 per hour on residential streets, according to police. Three officers were in the squad car.
The chase lasted just 62 seconds and spanned 1.64 miles. Craig said a supervisor reported making several attempts to verbally stop the pursuit, but it's not clear if the orders were heard over police radio traffic.
"Our supervisors are expected, by policy, to monitor and if necessary, engage, and stop the pursuit. Preliminarily, when I met with the supervisor, he made several attempts to go on the air – to stop the pursuit," said Craig. "I will tell you that, preliminary, we've gone down the communications to verify whether or not the supervisor's request was heard. We did not pick that up."
Craig said officers lost sight of the Camaro before it crashed into the front porch of a home near Frankfurt and Nottingham, where several kids were playing outside. It was not immediately known how fast the police car was traveling.
"It was a short distance. A short amount of time," Craig said. "The officer reported seeing a weapon which constitutes a felony. Officers can pursue for a weapons offense."
The officers took two children who were laying unresponsive in the roadway into their squad car and rushed to the hospital, where the children -- 3-year-old Makiah Jackson and 6-year-old Michaelangelo Jackson -- were pronounced dead.
Other officers arrived on the scene and found three children -- ages 3, 5, and 7 -- critically injures. They too were placed in a squad car and rushed to the hospital. The oldest child remains in critical condition, while the other two have been upgraded to stable.
The fleeing vehicle also struck a 23-year-old woman, who was taken to the hospital in serious condition.
Harris and his 26-year-old passenger were arrested at the scene. The passenger suffered a broken hip and arm in the incident.
Craig said the department is looking into whether the officers and supervisors followed policy.
"You have to balance public safety, road conditions, time of day," he said. "We have not gotten to the point where I can tell you definitively that there was a violation of department policy. We may look at it in the end and say that there was no violation."
The department manual states that "a vehicle pursuit has the same potential for serious injury or death as the use of fatal force" and that "the decision to terminate a pursuit may be the wisest course of action."
Reports say police did not find a weapon in the Camaro.
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