A West Town man was trying to avoid jail when he dragged a Chicago police officer with his vehicle during a traffic stop on the South Side earlier this week, Cook County prosecutors said.
The officer was sent hurtling through the air and slammed into a cement wall, fracturing his skull in three places because of Aaron Okelola’s actions, prosecutors told John F. Lyke Jr. Wednesday.
Now, instead of a traffic fine, Okelola could face decades in prison, Lyke noted.
Okelola, 25, was stopped by the officer and his partner after they spotted him driving through a solid red light in the first block of West 95th Street around 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Okelola was unable to produce a driver’s license and had been smoking marijuana in the vehicle, prosecutors said. When the officer reached into the vehicle to grab the keys, Okelola allegedly sped away, dragging the 30-year-old officer with him.
After accelerating through another intersection and crossing three lanes of traffic, Okelola, crashed into a metal support beam for the 95th Street/Dan Ryan CTA Red Line station, prosecutors said.
“The officer is in surgery right now as we speak,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said Wednesday.
Aaron Okelola
Okelola was charged with a count of attempted murder, as well as misdemeanor counts of fleeing and driving on a suspended license.
“This is all captured on video,” Murphy said of recordings taken with the officer’s body-worn camera.
Okelola allegedly admitted to dragging the officer. He was out on bond in a pending drug case at the time of the crime, prosecutors said.
Okelola, a father of two, had not intended to harm the officer and did not give a signed statement, an assistant public defender said, adding that the electrician’s assistant could post $10,000 if released on bond.
“He can keep his $10,000, he won’t need it” Lyke responded before ordering Okelola held without bail.
Okelola is expected back in court Dec. 14.
