Car fleeing cops jumps curb, kills 2 children in Detroit

Two young children were killed and four other bystanders were injured after a driver who was fleeing police crashed into them Wednesday night during a police chase on Detroit's east side.

Three of the injured were also young children, police said. The motorist and a passenger were arrested.

"It's tragic," said Police Chief James Craig. "It's a very difficult day."

The chase, which lasted only 75 seconds, began at Chatsworth and Cornwall Street around 7:30 p.m., Craig said. Two officers spotted two people in a Chevy Camaro and saw one of them with a handgun, Craig said.

When the officers activated their lights and tried to pull them over, the suspects took off.

In the 75 ensuing seconds, the Camaro reached speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. The car drove so fast that officers briefly lost sight of the vehicle -- but moments later, saw a plume of smoke nearby, and drove towards it.

When they arrived they found a grisly scene. Two children, ages 2 and 6, were lying motionless in the street. Farther away, three more children were critically injured -- 3, 5 and 7 years old.

A sixth bystander was injured, a 23-year-old person, though not critically. In the ensuing rush to render aid, the officers put the children in their patrol unit, Craig said.

The two suspects in the Camaro were placed under arrest. One of the suspects was also injured in the chase, Craig said. Police did not provide further details about them.

As of Wednesday night, the condition of the victims who remained alive at the scene was not yet known.

The grandmother of two of the children, Nicole Jackson, 40, said she was in her home on Nottingham near Frankfort when she heard a loud crash and ran outside.

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She beheld the scene's aftermath, but police prevented her from getting close. She then heard from neighbors that a car had jumped the curb and roared by her home while at least partially on the sidewalk, with police close behind. A long black metallic mark was left down the center of the sidewalk.

It was not clear which two of the children were Jackson's. But Jackson's fiancé, Ronald Antczak, 43, ran out alongside her and saw a child lying still.

"It's not something you can describe, a kid lying lifeless in the street," he said.

A bystander who would only give her first name, Marquierite, said she was at Nottingham near Mack Avenue when she saw a red Camaro barrel by, turning sharply right, with a police car riding the car's bumper. She said she could tell the car's speed was out of control.

I said, "They're gonna kill somebody. … These kids are dead for no good reason. I'm just disgusted."

At the intersection where dozens of police officers roped off the street for several blocks, a small red metallic panel could be seen strewn in the roadway.

Minutes after the crash, nearly 100 people had gathered around the police tape's perimeter, and dozens of officers were collecting evidence.