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............stories like last night's speeding special and this one burn me up:
July 22, 2001
Police Pursuit Under Review After a Fatal S.U.V. Crash
By STEPHANIE FLANDERS
fficials said yesterday that a stolen sport utility vehicle was being pursued by the police at high speed when it careered out of control and into a crowd of people in Newark's Central Ward Thursday night, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring six other teenagers.
Investigators from the Essex County prosecutor's office and the Newark Police Department's internal affairs unit are reviewing the pursuit to ensure that it complied with the state attorney general's guidelines concerning high-speed chases, said Charlotte Smith, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office.
She said the guidelines authorized the police to chase vehicles "if they believe the suspect has committed a first- or second-degree crime, or when the police officer reasonably believes the violator poses an immediate threat to the public."
Detective Eugenio Gonzalez Jr., a Newark Police Department spokesman, said that the police began to pursue the S.U.V. after they saw it moving fast and erratically.
Suspecting that the vehicle had been stolen, the police chased it for about 10 minutes before the S.U.V. swerved to avoid an oncoming car and jumped the curb onto the sidewalk at 12th Avenue and South Sixth Street. It hit two light poles and several pedestrians before stopping.
One pedestrian, Chrystal Lee, 17, was killed; another teenager was in critical condition yesterday at University Hospital in Newark.
Detective Gonzalez said that the three people in the S.U.V., a black Ford Explorer, were charged with receiving stolen property.
All three were from Newark. One was identified as Rashad Cotten, 19. The police would not reveal the names of the other two, both of whom are 17.
The detective said their charges were likely to be upgraded soon, although he declined to be more specific.
Under the statewide guidelines for high-speed pursuits, the police must report all such chases to the county prosecutor's office, which must then determine whether the state guidelines were followed.
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