8 Hurt, 3 Arrested After Police Chase That Ended In Crash
Updated 10/21/11 - 11:15 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Three people were in custody on Friday after a police chase led to a multi-car pileup in the Chatham neighborhood. Eight people were hurt in the crash, including a Chicago police officer.
As CBS 2's Susanna Song reports, the chase started around 9 p.m. Thursday in the 8000 block of South Indiana Avenue and ended three blocks away, when three vehicles crashed at 83rd Street and Indiana Avenue.
A traffic light was taken out in the wreck and pushed 50 feet along the ground.
Police said officers were trying to pull over an SUV after receiving reports about weapons inside the vehicle.
But the SUV fled from police and, moments later, slammed into an unmarked police car, then struck a second vehicle with four people inside.
The suspects' SUV flipped over from the impact of the crash. The other cars – a Dodge Intrepid and a Ford Fusion police car – were also badly damaged. Four people in the car, the three suspects and one police officer were hospitalized with injuries from the crash.
One neighbor said the scene was chaotic.
"Last night, like maybe five or ten minutes after I came in the house from work, I heard like a real big crash, like a bang," Ericka Burns said. "So I got up and I looked outside the window and I didn't see no police cars or nothing and I went to talk to my son's father and … he was still asleep, but I looked out the window and all I see was just, like, a whole lot of police cars."
At least one of the vehicles ended up just a few feet away from the front steps of a house.
The three suspects from the SUV were in police custody on Friday, although two were still hospitalized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in serious to critical condition.
The police officer and the four people in the other car were hospitalized, but have since been released.
Police said weapons were recovered inside the SUV.
