Green Township police were pursuing a stolen vehicle Tuesday before the 15-year-old driver crashed, killing one person and leaving another hospitalized, officials said.
Green Township police said they tried to stop the 2023 Honda CR-V just after 7:35 a.m. because it had been reported stolen out of Cincinnati.
“The driver of the Honda CR-V purposefully swerved to the left and struck a marked Green Township police cruiser,” the department said in a news release.
The officer pursued the vehicle “briefly” but lost sight of it in the 2300 block of North Bend Road, the statement said. The Honda then crashed into two other vehicles in the 2200 block of North Bend Road.
Cincinnati police also issued a news release reporting that a 28-year-old man was killed and a 69-year-old woman was hospitalized in the crash. Their names have not been released.
The two departments issued their press releases within an hour of each other on Thursday evening. Green Township’s release makes no mention of the fatalities involved in the crash, and Cincinnati’s does not mention the police chase, only that “excessive speed” may have been a factor in the crash.
Police pursuits have been a controversial topic in law enforcement for years because of the danger they pose to innocent bystanders. At least 352 people were killed in law enforcement actions in the state between 1982 and 2014, according to a 2016 report from the Ohio attorney general. Of these, 147, or 41%, were bystanders.
In 2022, the Cincinnati Police Department revised its pursuit policy and said officers would only pursue perpetrators of violent crimes.
In this case, Green Township police charged the 15-year-old with assault on a police officer in connection with the allegation that he purposefully struck a cruiser. He is also charged with receiving stolen property and failing to obey the signal of a police officer.
The investigator asks for a copy of Green Township’s pursuit policy.
Cincinnati’s decision to limit pursuits came two years after Raymond and Gayle Laible were killed in a high-speed chase across the river into Kentucky. The Laibles were sitting outside on the sidewalk in Newport when a wanted arms dealer ran them over.
The department also led an effort to create a nationwide unified pursuit policy to create standards for how the dozens of police departments would work together when pursuits cross jurisdictional boundaries.
The Enquirer will update this story as more information becomes available.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 28-year-old dead after teen crashes into stolen car following chase
