Cops: Street sweeper in fatal Orland crash cited for running red light
BY STEVE METSCH smetsch@southtownstar.com April 17, 2012 2:40PM
Traffic passes through the intersection of 171st Street and LaGrange Road in Orland Park, Illinois, Monday, April 16, 2012. Three people were killed in an accident there Sunday evening. | Joseph P. Meier~Sun-Times Media
Updated: May 19, 2012 8:13AM
The driver of a street sweeper involved in an accident in Orland Park that killed three members of a Tinley Park family has been cited for disobeying a red light, police said.
Police are not releasing the driver’s name pending further investigation of the case, Orland Park Police Cmdr. John Keating said Tuesday.
The street sweeper, which is registered to Midwest Maintenance Systems in Mokena, was heading north on LaGrange Road when it collided with a Toyota Camry turning east onto 171st Street from southbound LaGrange Road about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, police said.
Three people in the car — Nazai Deis, 62, his wife Wafieh Deis, 49, and their daughter Samah, 15 — died in the crash. Their funerals were Tuesday.
The family lived in the 17300 block of Queen Mary Lane in Tinley Park.
The couple’s 24-year-old daughter was driving the car, Keating said. He said she had been waiting to make a left-hand turn.
“The light had changed. Traffic coming northbound, it was their responsibility to stop. Based on witness interviews, he clearly disobeyed that red light and went through it,” Keating said.
One of the witnesses was in a pickup truck waiting on 171st Street to turn south onto LaGrange Road, Keating said. That truck was hit after the Deises’ car was struck by the street sweeper, Keating said.
Samples of the street sweeper driver’s blood and urine have been sent to the Illinois State Police crime lab to be tested for drugs and alcohol, Keating said, as standard procedure.
