ST LOUIS — A teenager who escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center in September died Tuesday when he was hit by a vehicle as he fled from police, St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden said.
The 17-year-old boy was "dodging in and out of traffic" when he was hit on Interstate 70, Hayden said.
The driver whose car hit the teenager stopped and was cooperating with investigators, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Hayden said a car the teenager was in crashed into an embankment near an interstate entrance ramp. The driver and the teenage boy ran into westbound traffic on the interstate. The driver got away, the chief said.
The teenage boy escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center at Sept. 4, said Jacob Long, a spokesman for the 22nd Circuit Judicial Court.
He was being held for weapons and drugs offenses, escape from confinement with a deadly weapon, second-degree assault and tampering with a motor vehicle in first degree, Long said. He had not been certified to stand trial as an adult.
The teenager was one of 10 juveniles to escape from the facility in three separate incidents in recent months. Five of the juveniles have been recaptured and four remained on the loose as of Tuesday.
