Loves Park Police Department Reveals New Details in Head-On Collision Accident
By: Vi Nguyen
Updated: January 10, 2013
January 10, 2013 (LOVES PARK) -- Firefighters use the jaws of life, frantically working to remove four people from the wreckage of a stolen black Toyota Camry.
The car crashed head on into a pick up truck near the intersection of Theodore Street and N. Second.
Five people in all were taken to the hospital. One teenager had to be airlifted. She and another teenager were critically hurt.
"Well, it's the first time of my career that we obviously had anything like this," said Loves Park Deputy Chief Rodney Scott. "You know you hear stories of kids getting caught driving before they're 16."
The driver of the Toyota Camry turned out to be a 13 year old girl. Her front seat passenger was a 14 year old girl.
The Elgin Police Department confirmed the girls ran away from a group home in Elgin.
"We are familiar with them at the police department. We have had a numerous encounters with them in terms of running away," said Elgin Police Department Commander Glenn Theriault. "We would call them habitual runaways."
We learned the girls were not alone in the car. Sitting in the back seat were two Rockford men.
Loves Park Police identified them as Kyle Arrington, 20 and Sherman Sawtelle, 19.
Loves Park Deputy Chief Rodney Scott said, it all started Wednesday afternoon when his department received a call about a drive off at a gas station.
When officers ran a check on the license plate, they found the vehicle was reported stolen out of Elgin on Tuesday.
"Officers from day shift gave the information to night shift," said Scott. "About 7:40 p.m. last night one of our officers was out on Windsor Road and spotted what looked like that vehicle."
Police said, the 13 year old driver drove through a red light then crashed head-on into the pick up truck.
