DEKALB, IL- The chicago.suntimes.com writes that a woman died after fleeing from police in DeKalb on Saturday, December 1, 2018. The woman drove her SUV into a tree in her attempt to escape law enforcement officers.
At about 11:30 at night, police arrived in a parking lot on Hillcrest to investigate reports of gunshots. The officers then began to follow the woman after seeing it driveoff with a man in pursuit. The man told thepoliceto stop the vehicle.
The police pursued the vehicle, which did not have headlights on. Police stopped following the vehicle after the driver went through the intersection of Hillcrest and Normal.
Officers later found the vehicle, which had driven through a fence before striking the tree.
The driver was identified as Jonica Walker, 24, of DeKalb. Walker was declared dead at the scene of thecrash.
Police have to be cautious when determining when they should pursue a suspect if a person leads them on a car chase. Police chases are dangerous to the officers, the suspects and to bystanders. According to the Nation Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), between 1979 and 2013, 11,506 individuals died in police chases, 6,300 were suspects who were fleeing the police. By some estimates, the NHTSA’s numbers are too low because crash reports do not always indicate that there was a police chase involved in a crash.
Studies have indicated that most drivers who flee from police turned out to only be guilty of minor crimes such as property offenses or underage drinking. Many police departments now have policies that strictly limit times when a police chase is appropriate.
If you or a loved one has been harmed in a traffic accident, contact Stein & Shulman, LLC Today
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Sources:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/fatal-crash-dekalb/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/30/police-pursuits-fatal-injuries/30187827/
