Associated Press
PORTAGE, Ind. — A suspect in a fatal stabbing and his 2-year-old son died early Tuesday when the man crashed into a squad car in northwest Indiana while fleeing police.
Indiana State Police said the suspect had gone to the boy’s mother’s apartment shortly before 1 a.m. and found her with another man, sparking an argument. The suspect held a knife to the woman’s throat, and when the second man tried to intervene, the suspect stabbed him before fleeing with the boy, police said.
Officers spotted the car about 40 minutes later and followed it along U.S. 20. They did not use lights or sirens because “stop sticks” were being deployed further down the road to deflate the tires on the suspect’s car.
One of the car’s tires hit the stop sticks but the driver continued toward a roadblock in the town of Porter about 15 miles east of Gary, where a Porter County sheriff’s deputy had parked his car in the road facing oncoming traffic with his lights flashing.
Police said the deputy was outside his car getting ready to deploy his stop sticks when he heard the suspect’s car accelerate.
“He aimed the vehicle at the deputy’s cruiser, accelerated at a high rate of speed and crashed into the cruiser,” said Mark Becker of the Portage Police Department.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene. They boy, who had been sitting in his father’s lap, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police have not released the victims’ names pending notification of relatives.
Porter Fire Department Chief Lewis Craig Sr. said the collision, which left the front of the police car and the front of the suspect’s car smashed, was one of the worst crashes he’s seen.
“I didn’t even notice that was a squad car,” he said.