 Four City of Reading Police Officers and one pedestrian are injured when several police cruisers crash in an intersection. The officers were responding to a domestic where a shooting occurred. The injuries to the victims were not reported to be life threatening.
Around 15:30 this afternoon several police vehicles, responding to a shooting, collided as they passed through the intersection of No. Third and Washington Streets. One of the vehicles drove the other onto the sidewalk and both came to rest against a building.
Some of the firefighters at the 3rd and Court fire house less than a block away were sitting outside and the crew of Engine 3 responded immediately after hearing the crash. Other apparatus assigned to the call were Rescue 1 and Car 6, a Western Berks ambulance was put on the call and another city unit responded after clearing a previous call.
One of the officers stuck inside the passenger compartment of the unit he was in was easily freed after some of the interior was cut loose. He was collared and boarded and loaded into the Western Berks unit, after being treated on the scene, he was transported.
The other officer was pinned inside his unit and firefighters needed to remove the roof of the vehicle to extricate him. He was also then collared, boarded and treated by city medics before being transported to the hospital in unit 602.
Two other officers received minor injuries and all four were expected to recover. One neighbor who was sitting on the front porch of his home in the 300 blk of Washington Street was slightly injured by a tire that came off one of the police cruisers during the impact. The civilian was treated by another city medic unit called to the scene.
Engine 3 accompanied 602 to the hospital and the scene was cleared. The vehicles were towed and a city street cleaning unit was on the scene to clean the debris. The intersection was reopened about an hour and a half after the crash occurred.
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