The Chicago Police Department (CPD) took between 20 and 30 minutes to respond to a horrific hit-and-run crash that left three people dead and two people injured.
The fatal accident occurred outside of Jeffery Pub at around 5:03 a.m. on Sunday, but it wasn’t until approximately 5:33 a.m. that a police officer reported to dispatchers that he was at the scene, CWB Chicago reported, citing dispatcher records.
The deceased victims were identified as Donald Huey, 25, Devonta Vivetter, 27, and Jaylen Ausley, 23, WLS reported.
No suspect has been arrested or identified, and the investigation is still ongoing. A vehicle that is believed to have been involved in the fatal crash has been identified and located by authorities, WLS noted.
“It appears to be intentional based upon what everyone has seen,” CPD Chief of Detectives Brenden Deenihan told reporters via WGN 9.
At around 4:35 a.m., dispatchers received the first call of a disturbance at the pub over a man who was threatening people. The man was reportedly threatening to grab a gun from his vehicle.
During this time, police in the Grand Crossing (Third) District were backed up with multiple other calls they had received that night.
A police dispatch recording at approximately 4:48 a.m., obtained by CWB Chicago, shows that Jeffery Pub disturbance report not being read until 43 seconds after a long list of reports was read aloud.
Eleven minutes later, dispatchers received reports of about 20 people fighting outside the pub. A man was reported with a gun outside moments later.
During the commotion, a driver plowed through the crowd that was in the street, striking multiple people at high speed and then driving away. Disturbing video footage shows the horrific moment of the fatal crash.
After a dispatcher read the hit-and-run report at approximately 5:03 a.m., noting a body was lying at a train crossing near the pub, no police officers responded to the report.
As emergency medical responders began arriving on the scene about ten minutes later, no police officers had yet responded to the dispatcher’s report of the hit-and-run at the pub. Fire department officials requested more support when they responded to the scene, noting they needed more traffic and crowd control.
At 5:19 a.m., a sergeant with the CPD finally responded to the dispatcher that he would head toward the scene. The sergeant then reported to dispatchers at 5:33 a.m. that he was at the scene with officers from other districts.
Based on dispatch reports, it took the CPD just under an hour to respond to Jeffery Pub from the first reported disturbance and approximately from 20 to 30 minutes to respond to the scene after receiving the hit-and-run report.
CWB Chicago noted that in the aftermath of the fatal accident, the CPD sergeant was the only “available” officer in the third district to respond to the scene.
Since April 2020, the district has lost 25 percent of its officers, according to city data, the outlet noted.
While there is some public pressure from groups to label the hit-and-run as a hate crime, since Jeffery Pub is a prominent gay bar in the city, police officials are not considering the fatal accident as a hate crime.
“We don’t have any evidence to support that somebody was trying to harm these individuals because of their race, religion, etc. at this time, because we don’t have a suspect in custody and we don’t have any information that somebody stated that,” said CPD Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan via WLS.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.
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