Police say it happened at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday at a 6-way intersection, where 16th Street, Belfield Street and Louden Street come together.
Images from Chopper 6 HD over the crash scene showed a police cruiser with heavy front-end damage, a trail of dark liquid leading from under the engine area and a black BMW sedan a short distance away that had also sustained front-end damage.
The black BMW was heading south on Belfield. The cop car from the 35th district was heading west on Loudon.
Witnesses say the cop car turned on its lights just as it entered the intersection, running the red light.
"I mean, the cop was totally in the wrong. Like, he didn't give him time to react."
John Adams says he saw the accident happen. He explains, "I saw the cop turn on his lights. I thought he was actually pulling a car over that was going in front of him. But he wasn't - I guess he was on a call or something. But as soon as he turned on his lights, it hit."
It's not clear yet if the patrol car was responding to emergency call at the time. The two officers in the car became the emergency. One of them got out of the car and staggered to the side of the road before lying down.
The two officers were taken to the hospital where they were complaining of aches and pains.
The driver of the other car and his passenger say the police placed them in the back of another patrol car and confiscated their cell phones. The driver, Trevor Schirra, says he had the light and didn't see the police car until he was broadsided.
Schirra says, "I definitely had the green light. I had the green light, the light was green, I was coming through pretty reasonably and [the patrol car] just came out of that area over on my left and just smacked into me."
The Accident Investigation Division says this is being treated as a minor traffic accident and that it's very unlikely that any charges will be filed.
