The driver of a vehicle involved in a fatal crash that began Sunday morning in Danville and ended in San Ramon has been identified as Livermore resident Hannah Meecham, 19, police said.
An officer noticed Meecham at 1:09 a.m. driving a white Honda recklessly on Sycamore Valley Road in Danville near the southbound on-ramp to Interstate Highway 680, according to police.
Officers tried to stop Meecham when she drove over a curb and onto the freeway, police said. Meecham led officers on a three-minute pursuit before she exited onto eastbound Crow Canyon Road in San Ramon, police said.
She doubled back at the Iron Horse Trail crossing and then drove south onto Camino Ramon, according to police. Both the police car and the Honda were travelling at about 70 to 80 miles per hour when the Honda left the road and struck a tree south of the intersection with Bollinger Canyon Road, police said.
Meecham died at the collision site and two other passengers, a 19-year-old Livermore woman and a 37-year-old Livermore man, were taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek with serious injuries, according to police.
An ongoing investigation revealed that the Honda had been stolen from Dublin.
Both passengers — who were still in critical condition as of Sunday afternoon — are being treated as witnesses rather than accomplices to a crime, according to Danville Police Chief Steve Simpkins.
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The pursuit would have been suspended if it could have endangered people in the area, but since it was on an empty road, the police say the chase was in line with department protocol.
Simpkins expressed sympathy for the Meecham family as well as the two passengers.
"On behalf of the Danville Police Department, our thoughts are with the family of this young woman," he said. "It's always tragic to lose someone at such a young age."
