Suspect in Custody After Crash on Tri-State Tollway Leads to Hostage Situation in Western Suburb

A Chicago man was taken into custody Friday morning after police say a crash on the Tri-State Tollway turned into a hostage situation at a west suburban home. 

Police were seen surrounding a home in unincorporated Leyden Township while searching for a person who fled the scene of an accident on the southbound Tri-State Tollway.

Police said the suspect, a 28-year-old man, was in custody shortly after 10 a.m.

The crash happened around 7:15 a.m. near the Grand Avenue curve when a black car crashed into a median. Police said the man was traveling with his wife and four children when he became involved in a domestic situation.

The man was stunned with a stun gun and involved in a physical altercation with a trooper before fleeing on foot, crossing all northbound and southbound lanes of the interstate. The trooper was injured in the incident, police said. 

After fleeing the crash scene, the man, armed with a knife, entered a home near Rhodes and Pearl Road and took an elderly woman hostage, according to authorities. Police said other people were in the home at the time but managed to get outside before the hostage situation began. 

After brief negotiations the man exited the home and was once again stunned with stun gun and taken into custody.

Police said the elderly woman was transported to a local hospital as a precaution and the wife of the suspect was also transported with her four children, though no injuries were reported. 

Kristin Randall, who drove by the scene and said she witnessed the incident, said she saw the man holding a woman and a child on the side of the roadway.

"There was a man standing with a woman in a headlock and the man had a child by the coat," she said. "Two troopers, one had his hand on his hip, the other had a Taser."

She said she saw the man then run across the interstate.

"It freaked me out," she said. 

It was not immediately clear what prompted the domestic incident. Police said there was no relationship between the man and the residents in the home he barricaded himself in. 

The crash closed one southbound lane of the interstate while authorities investigated. Police said an investigation was ongoing Friday afternoon.
 

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