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One Dead, Three Hurt Following Rollover Near Berrien County Jail

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One person is dead and three others have been hospitalized following an early morning roll over accident that happened just yards from the Berrien County Jail and Courthouse complex in St. Joseph today, but police aren’t sure yet how some of those injuries may have occurred inasmuch as those people may have been involved in an earlier altercation at the Blossom Acres Housing Complex in Benton Township.

Steve Neubecker from the St. Joseph Department of Public Safety says that his department was called out just minutes after 6:30 this morning, Sunday, December 15th, to the corner of Wayne and Port Streets in front of the Berrien County Jail to find a car rolled over and two of the four people thrown out of the vehicle from the impact of the crash.

One of the people in the car was found dead at the scene, three others were taken to Spectrum Health Lakeland for treatment of what Neubecker termed as non-life-threatening injuries.

Neubecker’s Department is being assisted in the investigation by the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department, the Michigan State Police, the Benton Harbor Police Department, the Benton Township Police Department, Medic I Ambulance and the Western Michigan University Medical Examiner.

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Authorities say that their initial investigation revealed that the four individuals involved in the rollover crash may have been involved in an altercation at the Blossom Acres Housing Complex in Benton Township.  The St. Joseph Department of Public Safety is currently working with the Benton Township Police Department to follow up on leads in an attempt to determine if any of the injuries sustained by those in the car were the result of the traffic crash or if they stemmed from the previous fight in Benton Township.  The names of the injured and deceased are not being released at this time pending notification of family members.

The cause of the traffic crash is being investigated by the Saint Joseph Department of Public Safety in conjunction with the Berrien County Sheriff’s Office Traffic Crash Reconstruction Team.

The crash and ensuing investigation forced traffic to be rerouted for several hours before the road was re-opened at mid-morning according to MDOT officials.