San Diego police officer killed and another critically injured in crash with fleeing car

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego police officer was killed and another was critically injured when a speeding vehicle crashed into their patrol car, the police chief said Tuesday. The speeding driver also was killed.

The crash occurred late Monday after a vehicle was spotted traveling at high speed on a boulevard.

An officer tried to make a traffic stop, but the vehicle failed to stop, and a brief pursuit began, Chief Scott Wahl told reporters, noting the information was preliminary.

“Due to a high rate of speed, a supervisor terminated that pursuit,” he said. “Two officers working together in one vehicle were responding to that fleeing suspect, and ultimately the suspect vehicle collided at a high rate of speed into the side of their vehicle.”

The officer driving the police car died at the scene, and the other officer was hospitalized in intensive care, where he was “fighting for his life,” the chief said.

Neither the officers nor the speeding driver were publicly identified. A couple of other cars were involved in the crash, but those drivers had no significant injuries, he said.

The California Highway Patrol has been asked to investigate independently, with a full reconstruction of exactly what happened, Wahl said.

“There’s a lot of information that’s going to be coming forward, and there’s a lot of questions that we all have,” he said.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported this month that a city oversight commission that reviewed data from more than 1,000 San Diego police pursuits recommended a dozen changes to policy, including engaging only in pursuits related to violent crimes.