Teen charged in police chase, crash
An 18-year-old man with nine prior driving convictions has been charged in Tuesday’s high-speed police chase and crash that injured four people, including an officer and two children who had been playing on a nearby sidewalk.
Tyreese Santana Hines faces four felonies, two counts each of fleeing an officer resulting in great bodily injury and recklessly endangering safety. He is being held at the Milwaukee County Jail. According to the criminal complaint: Around 10:30 p.m., officers spotted a dark Nissan Sentra parked at North 15th Street and West Capitol Drive that matched a description of a car involved in an armed robbery an hour earlier. As they pulled behind it, the Nissan took off northbound.
After it ran a stop sign and a light, police activated their emergency lights and siren.
But instead of pulling over, Hines accelerated and reached speeds of more than 80 mph while zigzagging through 61⁄2 miles of residential streets before crashing into a Mitsubishi Outlander that was trying to get out of the way of the chase on North 16th Street just north of West Keefe Avenue.
The impact sent the Mitsubishi into a parked Hyundai Sonata that then struck two children, aged 7 and 9, on the sidewalk. One suffered a broken leg, the other had no serious injuries.
A female passenger in the Sentra suffered spinal fractures. She initially gave police a fake name for Hines but eventually identified him. Police had seen Hines crawl from the driver’s seat to the backseat of the Sentra after the crash.
Two squad cars had arrived at the chaotic scene. An officer who was exiting his car to assess the scene was then struck by a third squad car as it pulled up. He was thrown into the air and had no pulse and was not breathing until a fellow officer performed CPR.
The injured officer was then taken to the hospital and treated for a broken leg and bruised ribs.
The complaint notes that Hines’ driver’s license was suspended at the time and that he’d last been convicted June 19 of driving while suspended. He has eight other convictions for driving while suspended, without a license or after revocation.