By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
Three teenagers were killed and one was critically injured while allegedly fleeing police in west suburban Berkeley on the evening of Monday Nov. 30, according to law enforcement officials.
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the hospital reported that the fourth teen had also died from injuries.
A Berkeley police officer saw a vehicle parked in an alley in the 5000 block of St. Charles Road about 11 p.m., police said in a news release issued on Wednesday, Dec. 2. The vehicle reportedly had its lights off and did not have visible license plates.
The officer attempted to conduct “an investigatory stop on the vehicle,” when the car quickly drove away, police said.
While fleeing, police said the driver of the vehicle ignored a stop sign and collided with a passing semitrailer at the intersection of Bohlander and Taft avenues.
Berkley police originally said that all four people in the car—the driver and three passengers—were killed in the crash. However, they later changed their statement, saying that three people were killed in the crash and one person had been critically injured. That person remained in very critical condition at press time. The semi-truck driver was not hurt.
Later, DuPage and Cook County coroners identified the teens who were killed in crash.
When the officer tried to curb the car, its driver sped off at a high rate of speed from the 5500 block of St. Charles Road. Within 30 seconds of fleeing, the driver went through the stop sign and crashed into the semitrailer, said Berkeley Police Chief Tim Larem.
In a later interview, Larem said two people inside the car died at the scene, and another was pronounced dead later at a hospital. A female teenager was listed in critical condition at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
According to the DuPage County coroner’s office, one of the victims was Orkitt Gresham, 18, of Chicago. The Cook County medical examiner’s office identified another victim as Tamiyah L. Marshall, 18, of Chicago. The name of the third was not released.
The Cook County sheriff’s office is assisting with the investigation into the crash. Larem said the incident was “unusual for our town.”
This story was updated on Wednesday, Dec. 9.
