A driver who led police on a wild chase along I-65 in northwest Indiana Wednesday morning eventually drove through a subdivision, crashed into a wooded area and escaped on foot.
The incident started on southbound I-65 in Hobart, Indiana, when a Hobart police officer tried to pull over a 2018 Kia Sportage for speeding, but the vehicle did not stop and instead sped up, according to Indiana State Police.
After about 25 miles, the Kia made a U-turn by driving into the median and heading back northbound, where a state trooper working in a construction zone on I-65 near Roselawn, Indiana, had stopped traffic for road patching repair.
The Kia continued northbound on the outer shoulder until it approached the trooper, and the driver put it in reverse and went southbound on the northbound outer shoulder, ISP said.
An Indiana State Police squad car was damaged and the driver suffered injuries when a car being chased by police struck the squad car in the median of I-65 near Roselawn, Indiana. | Indiana State Police
The Kia then entered the median where another ISP squad car car was waiting. But the driver headed “straight at the state police car, swerving at the last minute but hitting the state car,” a statement from ISP said.
The pursuit continued southbound until the Kia braked, went back into the median and into the northbound lanes. The trooper who was hit was behind the Kia northbound when it went back into the median again, crossed all lanes of I-65, then went “down and through the ditch on the west side, through a wire fence into a subdivision,” ISP said.
The driver went between two houses and crashed in a wooded area, where the driver ran off, leaving the Kia, a rental vehicle out of Indianapolis, ISP said.
He ran to a home and asked the resident for a ride, but when the homeowner said no, he ran off again, leaving a jacket behind.
The driver, who remains at large, was described as a black man in his mid-30s, about 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds with a stocky build. He was wearing a black T-shirt with white lettering.
He was seen in the area of County Line Road and State Road 10 near Roselawn. Anyone with information or seeing him should call 911 or their local police.
The trooper involved in the crash was taken to Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Crown Point with non-life-threatening injuries, ISP said.