Semitrailer driver arrested after bi-state chase

Residents in Hammond’s Hessville neighborhood were startled out of their homes late Monday morning when Hammond Police stopped a stolen semitrailer during a bi-state, multi-municipality chase that lasted 51 minutes.

The chase began at 10:44 a.m, when a Whiting Police lieutenant tried to stop the semitrailer at Front and 119th streets because it was off the truck route, said Hammond Police spokesperson Lt. Richard Hoyda. The truck then traveled south on Indianapolis Boulevard through East Chicago, then got on Interstate 80/94 and got off at 159th Street in Calumet City, Ill., and started heading back east toward Hammond again on 165th Street.

Hoyda said officers first deployed stop sticks at 165th Street and Indianapolis Boulevard to puncture the truck’s tires. Rachel Martinez, of Hammond, was heading west on 165th at Summer Street after dropping her daughters off at a nail salon when she saw the chase heading east on 165th.

“There were at least 30 squads following the truck, and they all couldn’t have been going more than 20, 30 miles an hour,” Martinez said. “I thought they were escorting it somewhere.”

But once the chase got to 174th Street, it picked up speed significantly, according to Linda Foster, of Hammond.

“Once (the truck) hit the tracks, it sounded like a bomb went off,” said Foster, who said her niece lives in a house near where the truck was eventually stopped. “(The semitrailer) already had no front tires, and you could see it tearing up the road.”

Once the semitrailer reached the 3300 block of Orchard Drive, three Hammond officers fired shots at the semitrailer to disable its remaining tires, Hoyda said. Carole Hogan, who lives across the street from where the truck was stopped, said she’d heard a helicopter flying overhead and sirens when she finally looked out her front door to see what was happening.

“I saw the truck, and then I heard the gunshots,” Hogan said. “The guy driving revved the engine and moved it two or three inches, and the cops were yelling at him to ‘Give it up!'”

Hogan said two officers hopped on the semitrailer’s cab, and one grabbed him while the other used a stun gun him.

“He looked so young from my front door, maybe 25 or 30,” Hogan said. “I never thought I’d see something like this in my neighborhood.”

Hoyda said the man, 44, from Jacksonville, Fla., was arrested at the scene and taken to an area hospital for treatment of the stun gun injuries; charges are pending. Additionally, police are still investigating the semitrailer’s contents, of which Hoyda said consisted of boxes on a pallet that had Asian writing on it.

Hoyda said the man hit two Hammond Police marked units and parked cars in Whiting; two accidents were recorded in Calumet City as well.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.