Mishawaka Man Crashes and Crashes Again

MISHAWAKA — Gary Chizum was working in the detailing shop at Home Street Machine Sales on Friday evening when he became hungry.

Chizum, the owner of the auto store at the corner of McKinley Avenue and Home Street, said he turned due west onto McKinley, heading to get some nutrient, and was almost hit past a Jeep Cherokee that raced through the crimson light at a high speed.

"They were flying, human being," Chizum said Monday afternoon from his office. "They looked like they were up on two wheels."

Moments later that Jeep ran some other red light, police say, at the intersection of McKinley and Byrkit avenues, most four blocks westward of Home Street, and broadsided a southbound Toyota Camry driven past John Riedle, 58, of Due south Bend. Riedle was pronounced dead at the scene. His rider, Laszlo Nemeth, 58, of S Bend, was seriously injure.

The commuter of the Jeep was fleeing police who had been in pursuit for roughly 15 miles.

Co-ordinate to Sgt. Ted Bohner, a spokesman for the Indiana State Police, troopers first began pursuing the Jeep on the U.Due south. xx Bypass because it was traveling at 99 miles per hour.

The Jeep, which troopers soon learned was stolen, led police on a high-speed chase through Elkhart and St. Joseph counties, with speeds ranging from 45 miles per hour to "upwards of 100," co-ordinate to Bohner.

Bohner did not know how fast officers were driving when the crash occurred, merely said troopers pulled back in their pursuit near the intersection of Home and McKinley considering of traffic.

"When nosotros come to an intersection and there's traffic, nosotros aren't going to only fly through an intersection just because our lights and sirens are on," Bohner said. "We're going to slow downwards and make certain all traffic in all directions sees us before proceeding through."

Chizum, who had pulled onto the side of the road just due west of the intersection at McKinley and Habitation later near being hit by the Jeep, recalled seeing four police force cars trailing the suspect "a ways off," but all the same traveling at high speed.

"When the cops came and they flew by me, my truck went similar this they were going so fast," Chizum said, demonstrating how his truck began shaking.

Fri'southward hunt is being investigated, as are all vehicular pursuits, and Bohner said there is no evidence to bespeak country police violated the section'southward policy regarding pursuits.

Co-ordinate to that policy, officers have the discretion to initiate a pursuit, though a chase should cease when "the need for immediate apprehension is clearly outweighed by the hazard to the public's safe."

The state police'southward policy does not specify what offenses necessitate a pursuit, but does include a number of factors for officers to consider when initiating a hunt such as road conditions, the safety of the public, traffic, the types of vehicles involved and the reason police attempted to perform a traffic end in the first place.

"This is after a stolen vehicle," Bohner said. "They were driving without regard for the public's condom before they had whatsoever blazon of police run across."

Co-ordinate to a search of news clips, Friday's crash marked at least the 10th death since 2014 in crashes that resulted from high-speed chases or other police activity in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties.

Police consider high-speed chases to be amidst the most perilous parts of an officer'south job, and 1 that requires a frail balance between catching suspected criminals and avoiding unintended danger to the public.

The danger of high-speed chases has led some critics to call on departments to ban pursuits in all but the most urgent circumstances.

Around the Us, a few police departments have washed away with chases except in response to violent felonies. According to PursuitSAFETY, a national group that advocates to limit high-speed chases, restricting chases to violent crimes would eliminate nearly 90% of pursuits.

Merely nigh law forces, including local departments, have implemented few hard-and-fast rules confronting high-speed chases, leaving decisions on whether to pursue a suspect mostly up to an officeholder's judgment.

Bohner said the public ofttimes focuses on the actions of police in pursuits, when it should focus more on the actions of those running from law enforcement.

"So often the question is why did the police force chase him?" Bohner said. "Very rarely is information technology why didn't that person finish?"

Passengers arrested

Later the crash, which occurred afterwards 7:thirty p.m. Friday, the driver of the stolen Jeep ran away on foot. Equally of Monday night, he had all the same to exist caught or identified by police. The St. Joseph Canton Fatal Crash Team is investigating the crash.

Four passengers were in the Jeep at the fourth dimension of the crash and three of them were treated for minor injuries. All four were detained by police. On Monday, St. Joseph Canton prosecutors announced charges of armed robbery against three of the passengers. The charges are unrelated to Friday'south incident.

The passengers were identified as Sedgwick Jackson, Janelle Fritz and Makayla Roundtree, all 19. Jackson and Fritz are also charged with kidnapping in connection with the robbery last month. A quaternary rider, Deshaun Shields, 24, was arrested on a warrant for an unrelated misdemeanor charge.

In courtroom documents, prosecutors declared Jackson used the dating app Tinder to set up a Jan. 21 meeting with a human being who was looking to meet a woman for sex. When the man arrived at a local apartment circuitous, he met Roundtree, and the two went out to dinner.

When they came back from dinner, Jackson allegedly pulled a gun on the human being and ordered him into the passenger seat of the human'due south truck. From the backseat, Jackson allegedly held the gun to the man while Fritz took $60. With Fritz driving, they allegedly told the man they were going to an ATM to get more of his money, and threatened to take him into the country and shoot him.

The homo eventually jumped from the moving truck at Lincoln Style and Ardmore Trail, several miles from the apartments.

Information technology is unclear whether the driver of the Jeep in Friday's hunt was also a suspect in the previous crime.

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Source: https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2020/02/11/fatal-mishawaka-crash-renews-questions-about-police-chases/43957925/

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