Two teenagers are facing charges after 18-year-old Amari Catchings was killed in a crash as the group was fleeing police in a stolen vehicle Tuesday afternoon in the Bronzeville neighborhood, according to police.
Officers investigating a call of a person with a gun walked up to a vehicle in the 4200 block of South State Street about 4:50 p.m., according to Chicago Police. The vehicle then took off and crashed into another vehicle, which was carrying a 29-year-old woman and a 6-year-old boy.
Catchings, who was riding in the stolen vehicle, was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:57 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The driver of the stolen vehicle, 19-year-old Dominic Gipson, was taken to Stroger Hospital, according to police. His condition had stabilized as of Thursday morning.
Catchings, of the 4000 block of South Prairie Avenue, died of multiple injuries from the collision and his death was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Gipson, of the 4200 block of South Michigan Avenue, was charged with felony counts of reckless homicide, aggravated possession of a stolen motor vehicle, and aggravated fleeing; and one misdemeanor count of speeding.
Another passenger in the stolen vehicle, a 17-year-old boy, was taken to Stroger, where his condition was stabilized, police said. He has been charged with one felony count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and one misdemeanor count of criminal trespass to a vehicle.
The woman and boy in the other car were taken to Stroger in good condition, police said.
A weapon was recovered from the stolen vehicle. Police said the 17-year-old boy pointed it out of the vehicle’s window before the crash.
Gipson and the 17-year-old were scheduled to appear in bond court Thursday.