Police hunt for driver following stop, chase
By Janelle Walker For The Courier-News June 21, 2012 7:32PM
The car of a man being chased by police is prepared for towing away from the scene Thursday afternoon along Stearns Road near South Elgin. Police were hunting for the driver in a forested area nearby after he reportedly fled the car during the chase, reports indicated | Janelle Walker~For The Courier-News
Updated: July 23, 2012 8:03AM
Police from Wayne, South Elgin, Bartlett and the Kane County Forest Preserve District were searching early Thursday evening for a man who sped away from a traffic stop, then jumped out of his car on Stearns Road just east of the intersection with Dunham Road.
Officers toting rifles, along with K-9 units and officers on bicycle, were patrolling around a tree line directly adjacent to the James “Pate” Philip State Park in Bartlett. The Illinois Prairie Path trail also winds near the search site. Officers were asking bicyclists to leave the path during the search.
Details were not immediately available from police on what had prompted the traffic stop or what might have caused the man to flee police.
According to Kristina West, whose home on Old Stearns Road overlooks the search site, she was reading in the backyard at about 4:10 p.m. when she heard several loud bangs and saw smoke coming from the road below her backyard.
“I heard brakes squealing and the gold (suspect’s) car jumped the median” between the east- and westbound lanes of Stearns Road, she said.
“There was all of this smoke and brakes squealing. Then there were a lot of sirens and within a minute all kinds of cops,” West said.
By the time she got to the edge of her yard, the suspect already had run into the wooded area. “I saw the tail end of it,” she said, and believes she saw the suspect running through the brush.
Another motorist stopped behind the suspect’s car and pointed police in the direction that the man ran, West added.
