Police Sued For Fatal Crash of Fleeing Teen

JOLIET, IL — The father of a teenage girl who was killed in a crash while fleeing a Yorkville cop has sued the police department.

Luther Hill, the father of Nichelle Hill, filed his lawsuit in Will County court. Nichelle Hill was killed in January. She turned 17 a month prior, the lawsuit said.

The suit says Nichelle Hill’s death was the result of an “extremely unfortunate and fatal vehicle collision.”

Nichelle Hill slammed into a tree in Heartland subdivision.

According to the lawsuit, the police received a report of a “young lady” who was “taking a package from the porch of a residence.” Soon after, a Yorkville police officer attempted to pull Nichelle Hill over, but she “made the unfortunate decision to briefly stop and then attempt to drive away from the traffic stop.”

Nichelle Hill was then “immediately, aggressively and recklessly pursued at an extremely high rate of speed (especially considering this was a residential [area] at [a] time during which many families normally commute) in what appears to be a cul-de-sac,” the lawsuit said.

The officer only ended his pursuit after Nichelle Hill “tragically lost control of her vehicle, crashing violently into a tree at a high rate of speed, causing the tree to fall, the vehicle to flip over at which point she was ejected and laid dying on a freezing patch of grass in front of a single family home on a Thursday morning.”

The Toyota Avalon Nichelle was driving had been reported stolen three days earlier, according to police. Inside the car, officers reportedly found three packages addressed to the woman who called the cops in the first place.

Nichelle Hill was a junior at Thornridge High School when she died, the suit said, and she loved to “write, draw and listen to a variety of music.”