BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — Police are looking for a truck that was involved in a fatal crash Tuesday morning in Brooklyn Center while fleeing police.
According to the Brooklyn Park Police Department, someone reported seeing their stolen construction trailer attached to the vehicle just after 10 p.m.
Officers located the vehicle and the trailer in the parking lot of a Hy-Vee on the 9400 block of Zane Avenue, but when officers attempted to make a traffic stop the driver fled. Police say they ended the pursuit for the "safety of community members who were in the parking lot."
Police say the driver then left the parking lot by driving through grass, down a ditch and into a chain link fence, eventually escaping onto Highway 252. Police say the trailer detached at some point while the driver was fleeing, but the vehicle was pulling 200-plus feet of chain link fence that became hooked on the pickup when the driver plowed through that fence.
Authorities say that the pursuit resumed, and while fleeing the driver of the truck passed another vehicle on Highway 252 near 66th Avenue in Brooklyn Center, causing another motorist to hit a traffic pole. Police say the innocent driver, identified as 75-year-old Judd Anderson of Brooklyn Center, died in the crash.
Police are still looking for the driver of the truck, which is also believed to be stolen. Investigators say the truck is a blue 2007 Ford F250 truck with Minnesota license plate MJW169.
Anyone with information on the pickup or the driver is asked to call the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) at (651) 793-7000, or simply call 911.