Surveillance camera footage appears to contradict the official story of a crash involving a Chicago police officer and a Chevy Equinox. The original story, as reported by CBS News on June 22 when the crash occurred, was that the Equinox was driving west on Monroe Street and crashed into the police car heading south on Kostner Avenue, sending both vehicles spinning into other parked cars. Police cited the Equinox driver for driving without insurance and two other counts, according to Fox 32.
However, Fox 32 also acquired video from surveillance cameras at a convenience store at that intersection that tells a rather different story. The Equinox stopped at the intersection with Kostner Avenue, allowed cross traffic to pass, then proceeded slowly into the intersection. The Chicago police car entered the intersection at a high rate of speed while passing stopped traffic, slamming into the side of the Equinox already in the intersection. Then both cars spun and crashed into parked cars, just like the original report said.
The first parked car they hit was a Volkswagen Taos with Danielle Howse, her fiancé and their three children inside. They were hospitalized in fair condition, and the VW is totaled. There is no information on injuries to the Equinox driver or the police officer, but deployed airbags in both vehicles are visible in the surveillance video. Airbags would not go off in a parked car, and there would be no reason to be wearing seat belts.
Police appear to have run a stop sign
The surveillance camera video in the Fox 32 news clip is pretty grainy, so I turned to Google Street View for a better look at this intersection.
The above view is similar to one of the angles from the surveillance video. Note the stop sign on the right side of the image for southbound traffic on Kostner. Monroe is a one-way street, and we can see the back of a stop sign there as well.
Below is the view northbound on Kostner just before the intersection with Monroe. This is the direction the Chicago police cruiser was traveling. Stop signs are clearly visible on both sides of the road and on both sides of the intersection. A Street View image from 2015 shows no stop signs on Kostner Avenue, but the 2024 image shows them both.
These images, plus the surveillance video, show not only that the officer entered the intersection at a high rate of speed, but also ignored these stop signs and did not check for cross traffic before proceeding. The Equinox driver stopped, then proceeded when they believed the intersection was clear, likely unable to see the fast-moving cruiser around the stopped traffic on Kostner. Based on the cruiser’s speed and the Equinox driver not reacting at all before the crash, it’s likely the Equinox driver never saw the officer.
Cop cover-up
We don’t know why the Chicago police officer was driving as fast or recklessly as they were. But even in a pursuit, police are responsible for keeping the public safe. That’s why many departments have strict rules about when a pursuit is justified, and why New York Attorney General Letitia James has proposed a statewide ban except for very specific circumstances.
We’d have to see more of the surveillance footage to be sure, but it doesn’t look like there was any pursuit involved here, just fast driving. Fox 32 says the cruiser’s emergency lights were on, though I can’t see them clearly in the video myself. The video has no sound, so we don’t know if the siren was on. If it was, that could have been a clue to the Equinox driver to pay closer attention. Then again, sirens are so common in the city that they can also blend into the background noise. Regardless, there’s no reason for anyone to charge through a stop sign and across an intersection that fast, even a cop.
Even worse, Chicago police so far continue to blame the Equinox driver for hitting the cruiser, despite clear video evidence that the cruiser T-boned the Equinox at high speed. It’s far from the first time police have lied, and sadly, it probably won’t be the last.