A trooper was injured on Friday, Christmas Day, when his squad car was rear-ended on I-80/94 in Lake County, Indiana State Police said.
According to police, at 8:14 a.m. Trooper Davonne Barlow, a nine-year veteran of the agency, was acting as a secondary unit at the scene of an accident in the westbound lanes of I-80/94 on the overpass at Indianapolis Boulevard. He was sitting in his squad car with his seat belt fastened when an SUV struck the vehicle from behind.
Police said the SUV's driver, Willie J. Whithead, 30, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, lost control and struck Barlow's 2013 Dodge Charger. The impact caused the squad car to hit the median wall, cross all lanes of I-80/94 and come to rest on the right shoulder.
Barlow and Whithead were transported to a hospital for treatment of injuries that police described as non-life-threatening. I-80/94 was closed for two hours.
Police subsequently said Barlow had been treated, released from the hospital and was recovering at home.
This report was originally posted December 28, 2020. It is retained as a historical public-safety record; descriptions of the people involved and their status reflect information reported at that time.
Report information attributed to Indiana State Police. Chesterton Post has standardized punctuation and formatting for readability without changing the substance of the archived account.