Recording proves police knew of other victims in Gary crash

GARY – Police radio recordings show that officers had been told that two teenage passengers were missing from a car crash even though officials have said that fact was unclear before family members found their bodies hours later in nearby brush.\nThe Sept. 15 crash injured two teenagers and killed Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both 18. The injured teens were taken to the hospital, but the whereabouts of Smith and Green were presumably unknown until Smith’s father went to the crash site and found their bodies.\nDispatch recordings obtained from the Gary Police Department by the Merrillville Post-Tribune show that officers were told that Smith and Green were in the car when it crashed.\n“He says he had two other guys with him,” an unidentified officer said on the recording at about 1:45 a.m. “They might still be in the car. You might want to check.”\nAnother officer responded: “Yeah, I’m headed there right now.”\nThe recording has an exchange between officers a few minutes later:\n“He said if they’re not in the car, then they had to have gotten out on their own and walked off,” one said.\n“If you’ve seen the vehicle, I don’t know how anyone would have walked off,” another responded.\nA 911 call at about 9 a.m. reported that the bodies of Smith and Green were found after Smith’s father went to the scene. Wails from the victims’ families can be heard over the police radio as officers call for assistance.\nGary police Cmdr. Sam Roberts, a department spokesman, said last week that officers searched the site, but that the survivors told officers they might have dropped off their two friends earlier. Roberts declined to comment Wednesday on the dispatch recording or the investigation into how officers handled the scene.\nPolice have said the driver Darius Moore and passenger DeAndre Anderson, 17, had alcohol in their systems at the time of the crash.\nThe Lake County coroner’s office has said Smith and Green died instantly, but the families have sought independent autopsies.