Man fleeing traffic stop used car ‘like a weapon’ before killing pedestrian, judge says

A Ford City man who struck and killed a female pedestrian while fleeing police during a traffic stop in Englewood said he sped away from authorities because he was out on bond in a pending attempted murder case, Cook County prosecutors said Thursday.

Isaac Wade was allegedly driving his sister’s silver Chevrolet Equinox at 80 mph and video-chatting with his girlfriend Monday afternoon when he blew through a red light at Racine Avenue and 74th Street.

Right after, he allegedly crashed into another vehicle before his car ricocheted and struck 42-year-old Lakisel Thomas.

Thomas, who broke her neck and suffered other injuries, died a short time later at St. Bernard Hospital.

Wade, 20, used his car as a weapon, Judge Arthur Wesley Willis noted before ordering him held on $500,000 bail for reckless homicide.

“A vehicle is a weapon when someone is driving fast, when someone’s not driving safe for conditions, when someone is driving at a high rate of speed just because they don’t want to be stopped by police,” the judge said.

Officers responding to the crash said they saw Wade throw an “L-shaped” object by the passenger side of the vehicle — where his cousin sat — and they later found a gun on the car’s floorboard, prosecutors said.

Wade claimed the gun was his cousin’s and that it was his cousin who encouraged him to drive away from officers earlier because he was on electronic monitoring for a pending weapons case, prosecutors said.

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Wade’s cousin said the gun was Wade’s, prosecutors said.

Wade, who had been pulled over for an improperly displayed registration tag, initially stopped during the traffic stop but then allegedly sped away when officers approached.

The officers followed behind Wade at 30-33 mph, prosecutors said.

Wade, who was out on bond for a 2017 attempted murder case, is also awaiting sentencing for a 2016 armed robbery and aggravated use of a weapon charge in Juvenile Court, prosecutors said. He also was charged as a juvenile for an aggravated robbery in 2017.

Wade’s defense attorney called Monday’s deadly crash an “accident.”

“Unfortunately somebody died in this, judge, but ... it’s closer to an accident than someone attempting to kill someone,” the lawyer said.

Willis, however, noted that Wade’s actions placed “other people in danger.”

“This is the worst-case scenario for that kind of event,” Willis said.

Wade is expected back in court on March 15 for his reckless homicide case.