PHILADELPHIA – A car fleeing a robbery scene and being chased by police Wednesday night jumped a curb and crashed into a crowd, killing three young children and gravely injuring a woman, authorities said.
"It's a tragedy," police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said.
The incident in Feltonville, a neighborhood of row houses in North Philadelphia, began with two men stealing a motorcycle at gunpoint, Ramsey said. One man fled on the motorcycle, and the other fled in a car, he said.
Police spotted the car a few minutes after receiving a report of the motorcycle theft and pursued it for about a mile.
The car jumped the curb with such force it crushed the concrete steps of one of the row houses. It became wedged between a house and a pole. The woman it hit is the mother of at least one of the dead children, all of whom were under age 10, authorities said.
"It's horrifying to think about what happened," Mayor Michael Nutter said at the scene. "It's a horrific scene."
The car's driver was injured and was arrested at the scene, and the motorcycle rider was arrested at his nearby home, where several weapons were found, police said.
Officers were attacked by a dog at the motorcycle rider's home and had to shoot it but didn't kill it, said police, who recovered two shotguns and two handguns there.
Police towed away the mangled car, whose back end and roof were caved in. They didn't immediately release the names of the victims or those arrested.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox