The red and silver van driven by a suspect in a sexual assault. The suspect fled police in the van, which came to a stop in the 1500 block of Wisconsin Ave. Photo by Kevin J. BarzUPDATE, 10:45 p.m.: The Racine Police Department just identified the subject as Chad J. Schuster, 31, who is "currently on parole and has an outstanding felony warrant for a parole violation." They also corrected parts of our report based on witness information. The changes are reflected in the original storybelow.
Here's the police report:
Subject: Sexual Assault Investigation Leads to Officer Involved ShootingOriginal post:
On today's date at approximately 6:32PM, Racine Police Department officers were approaching a suspect vehicle involved in an earlier sexual assault. While making their approach and giving commands and instructions to the occupants of that vehicle, they noticed that the vehicle operator had placed the vehicle in Reverse, and accelerated toward the approach positions of the officers.
The officers felt that they were in danger and having no opportunity to clear the path of the vehicle, an officer fired several rounds into the drivers’ side of the vehicle in an attempt to stop the attack on the officers by the vehicle operator. The officers jumped out of the way to safety, and a short vehicle pursuit began. The vehicle fled out of the area and was eventually pursued to the area of 1700B Main St where after a brief foot chase, the vehicle operator was arrested.
The vehicle operator under arrest was transported to Wheaton Franciscan for treatment related to a single gunshot wound to the back left side area. The suspect in the assault and the vehicle operator that is in custody are believed to be one and the same person. He is Chad J Schuster (10-01-77) of Racine and is currently on Parole. He does have an outstanding felony warrant for a Parole violation.
Witnesses to the sexual assault had called police and provided a detailed vehicle description including license plate that was broadcast to officers on Patrol. In addition to the vehicle description, information was also broadcast that the registered owner was Schuster, and that he had a felony warrant for his arrest. As a result of that radio broadcast, the officers had located the van in the east alley off of 20th and Franklin Sts. It was at this time, that officers attempted the approach to the vehicle resulting in the shots fired.
No officers were injured as a result of the confrontation with the suspect. The Department will be conducting an Internal Review of the circumstances of the shooting incident, while the Major Crimes Unit of the Racine Police Department continues its investigation into the Sexual Assault.
If you have any information related to this incident, you can call the Racine Police Department Investigations Unit at 635-7756, or Crimestoppers at 636-9330, or by texting to CRIMES (274637) and referring to Tipsoft I.D.# TIP417 with your text message.
Racine police arrested a suspect Saturday afternoon who
The chase occurred near the DeKoven Center and ended in the
The driver, 31-year-old Chad Schuster, of Racine, pulled over in the residential neighborhood and fled toward the lake down a hill. Witnesses who saw the suspect coming up the hill said he had a white bandage on his side. He was taken to St. Mary's Medical Center for treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.
The arrest allegedly occurred after police were investigating a sexual assault near the Pershing Park football field around 6 p.m. Police were searching for the suspect, who was driving a black and red van. The van was spotted near 20th and Franklin streets. Witnesses heard shots fired and a short vehicle chase ended on South Main St.
An officer shot Schuster after he shifted his van into reverse during the traffic stop and tried to runover the officers. The officer fired shots into the driver's side door of the van to try and stop the driver's attempt to injure the arresting officers.
No officers were injured in the incident.
Officers in the 1500 block of Wisconsin Ave. Photo by Kevin J. Barz
Wow, that Kevin J. Barz always gets the pictures of the sceen before anybody else. The Journal Times only has a small paragraph with no pictures yet. The Racine Post has a full article and very good pictures from Kevin Barz.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that a lot of the pictures on here are taken by Kevin Barz. Is he an employee of the Post or does he just do it for fun? If not an employee, I think he should be getting paid for his pictures. He always has pictures of happening news events way before anybody else does.
ReplyDeleteThe van was not stopped in the 1500 block of Wisconsin Avenue, it was in the 1800 block of South Main St.
ReplyDeleteThank you again Racinepost for the excellent coverage you continue to offer your readers. What would we do without the Racinepost and mpcitizen for information that the Journal Times will not cover?
ReplyDelete