ARLINGTON, Texas — Six people were taken to hospitals after a crash at the end of a police chase stemming from a shooting involving teens in Arlington on Thursday night, police said.
The crash happened around 9:30 p.m. on westbound Pioneer Parkway, near Cooper Street. A vehicle with four people in it was driving away from police when it crashed into two other vehicles, police said.
The four people in the initial vehicle were taken to the hospital, as well as two people from the other two cars that were struck.
Police said the victims' injuries did not appear life-threatening, but more information on their conditions was not released.
The incident started about three hours earlier, at 6:10 p.m, when Arlington officers responded to a report of shots being fired in the 1900 block of Chalice Road, off New York Avenue.
Police said officers arrived and talked to several witnesses, who reported seeing a group of teens fighting. The witnesses believed that one of the teens had fired a gun during the fight, and then the fight dispersed.
Police said officers were able to find one of the people involved in the fight. He told police that one of the other people involved did have a gun and that a shot was fired during the fight.
No one appeared to be struck by gunfire or seriously injured, police said.
But officers got a description of the suspect's vehicle, an Infiniti SUV, and later located it along Pioneer Parkway. Officers tried to pull the vehicle over, but the driver sped away, police said.
The officers decided to chase the vehicle "due to the violent nature of the original call," police officials said in a news release.
When the crash happened, the driver of the SUV, identified by police as 32-year-old Roberto Rodriguez, tried to run away from the scene but was arrested and taken to a hospital. Three other passengers in the SUV were also taken to a hospital: A 25-year-old woman, a teen boy and a teen girl.
The 18-year-old female driver of a Toyota Highlander SUV and the 23-year-old female passenger of a Toyota Prius were also taken to a hospital in the crash.
Police said they believe the teen male in the Infiniti SUV was involved in the initial shooting incident on Chalice Road. Police said the teen will be charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, once he is released from treatment. His name is not being released, since he is a juvenile.
Police said Rodriguez, the 32-year-old suspected driver in the chase, faces charges of evading causing serious bodily injury and abandonment/endangerment of a child.
Police said they found a gun inside of the Infiniti SUV but did not provide more information about the weapon's involvement in the incident.
