East St. Louis officer loses control of squad car and crashes into brick porch
An East St. Louis police officer lost control of his squad car while responding to assist a fellow officer Sunday night and crashed into a brick home in the 300 block of Alhambra Court.
Officer Melvin Cochran “was on his way to assist another officer when he hit a dip in the roadway and lost control, went off the road into a yard and hit a porch on Alhambra,” City Manager Robert Betts said.
Cochran suffered non-life threatening injuries and no one else was injured, Betts said.
Information on whether anyone was home at the time of the accident was not available.
Acknowledging that the squad car was totaled, Betts said the fortunate thing is that no one was seriously injured.
The vehicle was one of the newer ones in the police department’s fleet.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 1:42 PM.
