MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Five people died and three people were seriously hurt early Sunday after a crash at Hickory Hill Road and Raines Road that involved a Memphis Police Department patrol vehicle, authorities said.
Memphis Police said the collision happened about 12:26 a.m. as officers responded to a man-down call near Flowering Peach Drive and Mendenhall Road. Officers were involved in a collision with another vehicle at the Hickory Hill and Raines intersection in the Hickory Hill area of southeast Memphis.
Four people in the other vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene. Two officers and two other people from that vehicle were taken to a hospital in critical condition, and one of those occupants later died at the hospital, bringing the death toll to five.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol account described a two-car crash at Hickory Hill Road and East Raines Road in which one car carried six people and the other was an MPD vehicle with two officers answering a call for service. Only one person in the civilian car survived and was listed in critical condition, according to that account.
By 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Police said the two officers had been released from the hospital. The Tennessee Highway Patrol is investigating, with its Critical Incident Response Team leading reconstruction work. No cause had been released in the initial reports.
Hickory Hill is a large southeast Memphis suburban neighborhood developed in the 1980s and 1990s that has undergone significant demographic transition, now serving as an affordable suburban option with a growing Hispanic and immigrant community along the Winchester Road corridor. The Memphis Police Department (MPD) provides city policing there under Mayor Paul Young.