A passenger was killed after a police chase ended Tuesday with a stolen SUV driving into an Arkansas church, authorities said.
Arkansas State Police troopers began pursuing a Ford Bronco listed as stolen out of Texas around 8:40 a.m. on eastbound Interstate 40 in St. Francis County, agency spokeswoman Liz Chapman said in an email.
The Bronco driver took the Widener exit, about 2 miles down the road, and started fleeing north on St. Francis County Road 419, Chapman said.
The SUV then traveled across a gravel parking lot, struck Riverside Baptist Church and went inside the building, Chapman said.
A woman who was riding in the Bronco was pronounced dead at the scene. She has not been identified.
The man driving the SUV was taken to a local hospital for treatment and is expected to face multiple charges tied to the chase and crash, she said.
No injuries were reported from anyone inside the church at the time of the crash, she said.
The body will be sent to the state Crime Laboratory to determine a cause of death.
Marland Brown has been a pastor at Riverside Baptist Church for 23 years. An official with the sheriff’s office called him Tuesday morning and told him to head for the church as soon as possible, though the caller didn't say why, Brown said.
Brown pulled up to a gaping hole in the brick wall of a building connected by a breezeway to the main church sanctuary. He estimated the hole to be about 15 feet wide. Police units, sheriff’s deputies and ambulances swarmed the site.
“I was shocked,” Brown said by phone.
That building stored pews and equipment temporarily, but it was to become the newly renovated Youth Training Center, a place to educate young people in the Christian faith, Brown said.
Now, it’s “unsafe for anybody to even be close to it," Brown said, noting "it might just collapse." Because the SUV barreled into an auxiliary building, and not the sanctuary, church services can still be held, Brown said.
“Thank God for that,” he said.
The pastor said he began to assess the damage and called his contractor but decided to leave the area for a spell when authorities said they were about to extract the Bronco from building with the deceased woman’s body inside.
He later returned to conduct a more thorough survey of the wreckage. He said he’s been feeling “low” since he found out the passenger died.
“That building was just material, and somebody lost their life,” he said. “A life is more important to me than a building. A building can be replaced. A life cannot.”
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
