At 2:12 a.m. this morning, a white van crashed into two cars on 33rd Street and the van’s driver immediately left the scene. The incident occurred between North Charles and St. Paul streets, and no one involved in the two crashes was injured. Police caught the driver, a male who fled the scene running down N. Charles Street, at the next block.
Before the crash, a police car had been following the white van. The van made a sharp right onto 33rd, hitting an oncoming vehicle and, after swerving, a parked vehicle on the opposite side of the street.
The white van did not have headlights on and was traveling at about 60 mph, according to a Campus Security officer at the scene.
Though the officer was not sure why this vehicle had been followed by police, he suggested the chase may have resulted from an act of breaking and entering.
“He had screwdrivers and other tools on him at the time he was caught,” he said.
Vickie Hall, a passenger involved in the first of the two car crashes, was stunned but not injured.
“It happened so fast but luckily we both had our seatbelts on,” she reflected. “They hit us real hard, straight on; even the airbags came out.”
Sophomore Addie Crabb, a student living in Charles Commons and directly above the two crashes, heard sounds of the accident from her twelfth floor window.
“I heard the screeching of a car skidding on the road and looked outside just in time to see a man running past Niwana and down N. Charles,” she shared. “He was running so quickly, I didn’t think he was going to be caught.”
An hour later, police continued to investigate the scene as a tow truck cleared the scene.
