Cops: Wheeling teen hit officer with car

A Wheeling teenager was arrested early Sunday morning after striking a police officer with his car and driving away with the officer on the hood of the car, according to police.

Vladislav Pobyegayev, 17, of the 1000 block of Valley Stream Drive, was charged as an adult with aggravated battery to a peace officer after injuring the officer who was thrown from the vehicle.

Two Arlington Heights police officers approached a “suspicious vehicle” in a parking lot on the 2400 block of North Kennicott Avenue at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday and observed a white powder what they believed to be a narcotic inside, said Arlington Heights Commander Michael Miljan.

When the plainclothes officers approached the vehicle, identified themselves as police officers and told Pobyegayev to turn off the car off, he immediately put the car in reverse, according to authorities.

Pobyegayev then accelerated “at a high rate of speed” and struck one of the officers, who was thrown onto the hood of the vehicle, Miljan said.

“It was an instantaneous reaction,” Miljan said.

Pobyegayev, driving a 1996 Chrysler Sebring with three passengers inside, then suddenly stopped and reversed again while the officer remained on the hood of his car hitting the windshield with his gun, prosecutors said.

Pobyegayev proceeded to pull out of the parking lot, throwing the officer from the hood of the car, and went south on Kennicott Avenue, reports said. The officer was transported to Northwest Community Hospital and treated for a severe muscle strain to his leg, prosecutors said.

“He is very fortunate he rolled off the side of the vehicle and not the front,” Miljan said. “He could have been run over.”

The second officer jumped out of the car’s way, but was able to take down the license plate number and dispatch an alert to local departments who pulled the vehicle over in Buffalo Grove several hours later.

At the police station, Pobyegayev made a statement indicating he drove away because he had cocaine in the vehicle and was afraid, according to prosecutors.

Pobyegayev, who appeared in court Monday, has no criminal background.

He was charged with aggravated battery to a peace officer, a class two felony punishable by between three and seven years in prison.

Bail was set at $75,000, requiring the defendant to post $7,500 to be released from jail. He is due in court on Feb. 15.