Second driver seriously injured after high-speed chase

Photo courtesy of Columbus Police Department.
Photo courtesy of Columbus Police Department.
Gerardo Hurtado
Gerardo Hurtado

Columbus police say that a driver crashed into another vehicle, seriously injuring the other driver, shortly after police called off a high-speed chase Saturday morning.

49-year-old Gerardo Hurtado of Portage was arrested after the crash at Third and Lindsey Streets, while the other driver 56-year-old David A. Gates of North Vernon was taken to IU Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis with serious injuries.

Lt. Matt Harris, spokesman for the police department said the city police and Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department called off a high-speed police chase Saturday morning as the driver raced away at speeds of more than 90 mph on U.S. 31 heading toward Interstate 65. About half an hour later, at 7:40 a.m. that morning, the crash happened.

Witnesses said that Hurtado’s car ignored the traffic signal and tried to speed through the intersection, when it hit Gates vehicle. Hurtado refused to exit his vehicle, Harris says, despite police breaking out a window and shocking him with a Taser. Officers report that Hurtado continued to struggle and spit at officers. After a trip to the hospital, he was taken to jail on preliminary charges of criminal recklessness resulting in serious bodily injury, battery by bodily waste on an officer, resisting law enforcement and resisting law enforcement in a vehicle.

Gates had to be rescued from his vehicle and was unresponsive at the scene. There’s no word on his current condition.