"I knew it was going to happen:" Man dies after crashing stolen car into pole near 16th & Lincoln
MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee police say a driver stole a car from a dealership and smashed it just blocks away near 16th and Lincoln on Thursday, November 12th. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
At the scene of the crash, it was very easy on Thursday to spot where it occurred because tracks left by the tow truck were embedded in the grass and skid marks were left behind by the stolen car -- as it jumped the curb and smashed into a pole.
16th and Lincoln
"I never seen that -- a car crash like that," said George Kussmann, Smart Dollar Auto employee.
16th and Lincoln crash
Smart Dollar Auto
Kussmann barely recognized the car that was stolen off one of the lots where he works when he saw it at the corner of S. 16th and Forest Home Avenue.
"Because I just knew it was going to happen sooner or later. You're expecting something down there almost every weekend. It's that bad of an area," said Kussmann.
In fact, Smart Dollar Auto's owner says just the weekend before, there was an attempted car theft and two vehicles were vandalized.
"You go out there, you hunt, you buy them, you fix them, you got them looking all pretty -- you try to get the consumer a decent product and you got people coming right behind you trying to destroy everything. It's bad," said Kussmann.
George Kussmann
Just down the road, at Diamond Auto Sales, FOX6 spoke with Mustafa Ghazaai, who said he's already familiar with the headaches that come with stolen vehicles.
"It was about two months ago. We had a 2008 Honda Civic that was stolen from the lot," said Ghazaai.
Since then, they've taken extra safety measures and may go further.
"I was even thinking of putting like a motion sensor around the car lot to make sure no one is walking around the cars," said Ghazaai.
Ghazaai and Kussmann hope this tragedy can be a lesson.
"You hope. You hope and pray that they, somehow it will sink in in their head not to do it -- not to get involved with bad things like this," said Kussmann.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office is working to positively identify the driver killed in this incident.
The owner of the dealership that the vehicle in this crash was stolen from tells FOX6 the driver broke into the shop, and stole multiple sets of keys. Some of those sets of keys have been recovered.