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Passenger, cabdriver killed in fiery crash in Cincinnati
AP
Photo
Two people in a cab were killed when a police chase of a sport utility vehicle ended in a collision , just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, March16, 2011 at 8th and Sycamore streets, according to Cincinnati police. Officer Mike Flamm with the police traffic unit tells The Cincinnati Enquirer that officers were pursuing the SUV because it had been reported stolen.(AP Photo/The Enquirer, Michael McCarter)
Associated Press
CINCINNATI
An SUV being pursued by police collided with taxi in a “spectacular” crash that killed the cabdriver and his passenger, a blind woman on her way to catch a train to New York to care for her sick mother, the city’s police chief said Wednesday.
“There it is, boom!” Chief Tom Streicher said during a news conference while surveillance video of the crash was projected on a screen. The video showed the sport-utility vehicle clipping a car, then going airborne into the taxi, resulting in a flash of light upon impact.
“A spectacular crash,” Streicher said in summarizing the early Wednesday wreck at a downtown intersection a couple of blocks from the Procter & Gamble Co. corporate headquarters.
The SUV had sped off from a traffic stop, fleeing from officers at speeds estimated to be at least 60 mph, police said. Police followed proper procedures during the pursuit, observing traffic signals and stop signs, Streicher said.
The cabdriver who was killed was on his way to Cincinnati’s train station with a woman who had been living in the Cincinnati area temporarily but was on her way to catch a 3 a.m. Amtrak train to return to the Bronx in New York City. That passenger, a blind woman who also died in the crash, wanted to go home to look after her ailing mother, the police chief said.
Cincinnati police Sgt. Danita Kilgore identified the victims as 33-year-old Mohamed Ould Mohamed Sidi, of Cincinnati, and his 39-year-old passenger, Tonya Hairston, of New York.
Police identified the SUV’s driver as Mark A. Gerth, 39, who gave his address as a downtown Cincinnati homeless shelter. Court records indicate that police arrested him on three preliminary charges of aggravated vehicular assault. The records do not list an attorney for him.
A man who was a passenger in the SUV would not be charged, Streicher said.