A person was fatally struck by oncoming traffic after fleeing a vehicle during a police chase in Dallas on Tuesday night.
Police closed both sides of Interstate 35E at Royal Lane while the Dallas County Sheriff's Office investigated.
Farmers Branch Sgt. Chad Taylor said the police pursuit began as a burglary call at a business near I-35E and Valley View Lane in Farmers Branch at about 8:40 p.m.
A woman saw four men behind the business and followed them. She called police and gave officers the location and description of their van.
The van fled south on Interstate 35E into Dallas. Officers said traffic was very heavy, and the van was forced to stop.
Three of the people in the van jumped out and ran. One man was struck and killed on the highway by oncoming traffic when he jumped into the northbound lanes of I-35E. Police said they believe he was the driver.
"He stayed on the southbound side, running next to the retainer wall -- probably 25 feet -- at which point, he tried to jump over the retainer wall and as soon as he got to the northbound side, the vehicle struck him," Taylor said.
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The Dallas County Sheriff's Office is investigating the car which hit the suspect. An accident report was not released by 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Two people are in custody. The fourth person ran into the area southeast of I-35E and Royal Lane.
“The two suspects taken into custody didn’t have any id on them, so [we] have to go with name they have given us. We’re in process of getting any identifying information and trying to track new leads off anything left in the vehicle,” said Detective David Laisure.
Officers said they are grateful to the woman who called 911.
"We were extremely lucky on that," Taylor said. "We can't say enough of the effort of the person who witnessed it to have the ability to contact us to relay the information. Otherwise, we wouldn't have caught those people."
NBC 5's Amanda Guerra and Ray Villeda contributed to this report.
