Chief Defends Officers Who Missed Teens at Indiana Crash Site

Sep. 17--Gary's police chief today defended how officers responded to a weekend crash that killed two teens, saying the two survivors of the accident had been drinking and gave police unclear information.

Police Chief Thomas Houston said the two survivors--Darius Moore and DeAndre Anderson, both 17--had been at a "club" earlier in the evening where they may have been served alcohol. He said that one of them had a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 and that the other had a level of 0.09--above the legal limit of 0.08.

Houston was responding to questions raised by Arthur Smith, who is the father of one of the youths killed, as well as by other family members and relatives of the survivors. Smith said he found the body of his son, Brandon Smith, 18, and another youth, Dominique Green, 18, at the crash site about seven hours after the accident. Smith called on police and city officials for an explanation and raised questions about how long it might have taken them to die.

Earlier today, authorities said the two dead teens, both of Gary, died instantly after the crash.

The assessment that the deaths of Smith and Green were "essentially" instantaneous came in a news release from Lake County Coroner David J. Pastrick, who said his office would make no further information available about its investigation or autopsy findings.

Houston said that, after the crash, Moore and Anderson crawled out of the wreckage on Chase Street, near where it passes over Interstate Highway 80/94, and walked to a home near 24th Street and Chase, where they knocked on the door and asked for help.

A person inside declined to let them in but called police, according to Houston. He said an officer came to the house and talked to the injured teens, and then an ambulance arrived and took them to an area hospital.

Houston said the teens were unclear about whether they had dropped off two friends prior to the crash, or whether the friends might still be at the accident scene. According to the police chief, the teens said they had left their car at 25th and Chase, but when officers went to the area they had to search for the vehicle and found it closer to 28th and Chase. The car had crossed a median, gone through a guardrail and fallen into a ditch on the opposite side of the road, Houston said.

He said officers moved the wrecked vehicle and found no sign of other victims, so they concluded that Moore, who was driving, and Anderson had been the only people involved in the crash. "Law enforcement did not cause this accident and these deaths," Houston said.

In an interview with the Tribune this afternoon, Moore refuted some of Houston's comments. He denied he ever told police that he might have dropped off his passengers before the crash occurred. "I never said anything like that," he said.

On Sunday, the mother of Moore told reporters outside of Gary's Methodist Hospital Northlake that her son repeatedly told police about two others in the car after the 2:30 a.m. Saturday crash, but police didn't listen.

In an interview Sunday night on WLS-Ch. 7, Moore said he told police his friends were still in the ravine, but that he was told there was "nobody else out there."

Moore said he tried to go back and look. "I couldn't find them because I had a lot of dirt and debris in my eyes," he said. Also on WLS, Mayor Rudy Clay warned against a rush to judgment. "As soon as all the facts are in, we'll present it to the community," Clay said. "We have some good policemen in Gary."

Carmelita Evans, Moore's mother, said her son told her "the officer never went down in the ravine where the car was." Only Moore and DeAndre Anderson, also 17, were taken to the hospital. Smith and Green were the two other passengers.

Her son "crawled out of the ditch," Evans said. Her son told her the car flipped about 12 times. "His arm was gashed. And he helped one of the other boys, DeAndre."