Six-year-old dies after Brooklyn Center police pursuit ends in crash
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (FOX 9) - A six-year-old girl has died from the injuries she sustained in a car crash that occurred following a police chase late Friday afternoon in Brooklyn Center.
Brooklyn Center Police were pursuing a murder suspect in a car chase around 4:20 p.m. when the man collided with a car that had five people inside — a mother and her four children, at the intersection of 53rd and Humboldt Ave. North, according to witnesses and a press release from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said a 15-year-old girl who was also a passenger in the second vehicle remains hospitalized, while the driver and the two remaining passengers have been released from the hospital.
Police arrested the murder suspect at the scene and provided him with first-aid until paramedics took him to the hospital. He remained hospitalized as of Saturday evening, authorities said.
Ryan West, who lives near the intersection where the accident occurred, witnessed the crash.
"It was terrible, they were all in their swimsuits looked like they were either going to or coming from a beach day minding their own business and then this guy slams into them," he told FOX 9's Bab Santos.
According to the Brooklyn Center Police Department, at approximately 4:20 p.m. officers received specific information about a male murder suspect with an active arrest warrant for murder being in Brooklyn Center.
Officers were able to locate the suspect in a vehicle, then requested help from the Minnesota State Patrol helicopter before attempting to use a tire-deflating device to prevent a possible pursuit during an arrest. However, the device failed to immobilize the suspect's vehicle, and he fled, according to the statement. Police say at one point the vehicle reached 70 mph in a 30 mph zone.
The vehicle then collided with an unrelated vehicle at 53rd Ave N and Humboldt Ave N. According to police, Brooklyn Center officers did not attempt to use a Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT) to stop the fleeing vehicle.
Once the collision occurred, officers rendered aid to the four occupants in the unrelated vehicle and to the murder suspect, who was the sole occupant in the fleeing vehicle.
The incident is being investigated by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.