Harvard man killed after driving car off the road early Wednesday morning; 2 squad cars damaged

Low-hanging wires over Route 14 and a broken utility pole led Harvard officers to a black 2000 Mustang found 100 feet of the roadway in a heavily wooded area of the city early Wednesday, Chief of Police Tyson Bauman said.

The driver of that car, a 20-year-old Harvard man, was pronounced dead at the scene, Bauman said.

Bauman said that one of his officers was in the southbound lanes of Route 14-South Division Street when he saw a dark-colored sedan of unknown make and model go through the stop sign at Park Avenue and South Division Street about midnight. The car then continued north on Division Street at a high rate of speed, disregarding the traffic light at Route 173-Brink Street.

When the officer turned around, he’d lost sight of the car as it crested the viaduct over the railroad tracks, Bauman said. The officer then made a traffic stop at Division Street and Crowley Road, but quickly determined it was not the vehicle he’d seen previously. Two other officers, hearing that call over the radio, headed to the traffic stop’s location, Bauman said.

The responding squad cars struck a metal utility guy wire hanging low over North Division Street. Those low wires were caused by the suspect car colliding with and snapping a power pole adjacent to a home in the 7300 block of North Division Street, Bauman said. That broken power pole led emergency responders into the wooded area to find the crashed Mustang, he said.

One of the squad cars involved had its light bar destroyed, and the second squad that hit the guy wire had damage to its hood, windshield and light bar, Bauman said, adding all of the damage was repairable.

The Harvard Fire Protection District responded and helped locate the victim. The McHenry County Coroner will perform an autopsy and the Major Crash Assistance Team and the McHenry County Major Investigations Team have been activated to investigate the incident, Bauman said.

The deceased man’s identity has not been released.