Irving police release dashcam footage of a pursuit that resulted in the death of 4 people
By: Four people died early Thursday in a police chase that ended in a crash near Interstate 35 in Dallas, according to officials.
The pursuit began about 2 a.m. when officers located a stolen vehicle in the 3200 block of North Beltline Road and attempted to stop the driver, Irving police said in a news release.
Irving officers followed the vehicle, not knowing how many occupants were inside until the driver lost control near I-35 and Woodall Rodgers Freeway and crashed, police said. The car went over the side of the elevated exit ramp and crashed below, near the 429A Continental Avenue exit, police said.
All four of the people inside the car died.
Details, including what speeds the vehicles were traveling, were not immediately available. A portion of dash-camera footage released by Irving police showed a police car traveling at a high rate of speed on the exit ramp to catch up to the vehicle.
About 10 seconds in officers’ pursuit on the ramp, the footage shows a burst of flames underneath the ramp. The police car pulls over on the shoulder and tells dispatchers the car went over the ramp.
“Crash underneath, massive fire,” one officer tells dispatchers in the footage.
One Dallas County sheriff’s deputy was injured when the vehicle officers were pursuing crashed into a light pole, causing it to fall, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said. The deputy, who was in the area in an attempt to deploy spike strips to stop the fleeing vehicle, hit the light pole then a concrete wall. He suffered a minor injury and has been released from the hospital.