KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A female passenger in a car eluding police died early Thursday morning in a multi-vehicle, wrong-way wreck on eastbound Interstate 70 near 57th Street.
Kansas City, Kansas, police officers observed a suspicious vehicle near 18th Street and Metropolitan Avenue at 12:19 a.m. on Thursday morning.
Patrol officers followed the vehicle to a dead-end street before the suspect vehicle made a U-turn.
Officers attempted to initiate a traffic stop and observed a driver as well an unresponsive female passenger.
As officers approached the vehicle, the driver put the vehicle in reverse then drove at the officers, striking the driver’s side door of a police car.
The ensuing pursuit crossed into Kansas City, Missouri, where KCK officers terminated pursuit as officers with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department picked up the pursuit.
The suspect vehicle returned to KCK with a KCPD helicopter continuing to pursue it.
Eventually, the suspect vehicle drove the wrong way on Interstate 635 and I-70.
When the suspect vehicle was traveling the wrong way on eastbound I-70, it crashed head-on into an oncoming car.
Chrissy Saale, 29, of Kansas City, Kansas, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a Kansas Highway Patrol crash log.
The driver of the suspect vehicle, Collan Cross, 24, of Black Hawk, Colorado, and the driver of the other car were taken to the hospital. There is no word on the condition of those individuals, but the other driver’s injuries were described as minor.
Cross also was taken into custody and the KCK police will handle charges.
Wyandotte County Sheriff’s deputies also were involved in the chase, which was being investigated by the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Immediately after the crash, authorities shut down I-70 in both directions, but westbound lanes have been reopened.
Eastbound lanes reopened around 6 a.m.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Saale.
