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HUNTINGTON COUNTY – The Indiana State Police is investigating a personal injury crash that occurred shortly after 6:20 a.m. Sunday.
According to a news release from the ISP, the initial investigation preliminarily determined a white Mercedes was traveling south on Meridian Road, just south of Ind. 114, at a high rate of speed when it left the road and hit a utility pole. The Mercedes was suspected to have just fled from an attempted traffic stop initiated by an ISP trooper.
Before the crash, the trooper heard a dispatch of a white passenger vehicle that fled from a home in Columbia City. The driver of the car had been caught attempting to break into a vehicle and fled, the release states. The trooper noticed a vehicle well over the posted speed limit south on Ind. 9 near Ind. 14 in Whitley County. The vehicle the trooper clocked matched the description of the vehicle from the incident in Columbia City.
When the trooper turned around and attempted to make a traffic stop on the Mercedes, it sped up and a pursuit ensued. The pursuit ended up turning south onto CR 200 East (which turns into Meridian Road in Huntington County). During the pursuit, the lights on the Mercedes were turned off. While on CR 200E near Ind. 114, the car pulled out of sight of the trooper. The trooper then noticed a flash of light from a utility pole ahead. When he got south of Ind. 114, there were utility lines down across the road and the Mercedes had crashed, the report states. There were no other vehicles involved and only the driver was injured.
The driver was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. During the investigation, it was determined there were no other passengers in the car at the time of the crash.
The Indiana State Police were assisted by the Huntington County Sheriff’s Department, the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, South Whitley Police Department, Parkview EMS and Samaritan and Smiths Towing.
This is an ongoing investigation, and no other information is available at this time.
