Lake Zurich police officer injured in crash during traffic stop

A Lake Zurich police officer suffered nonlife-threatening injuries early Sunday when two squad cars were rear-ended during a traffic stop, authorities said.

The officer and a backup officer stopped their patrol cars behind a driver who was pulled over about 12:34 a.m. at Route 12 and Wooded Ridge Road, Sgt. Brad Hoops said.

During the traffic stop, he said, a 2009 Ford Flex traveling on Route 12 struck the rear of the backup officer's vehicle and pushed it into the other squad car, where the officer who initiated the traffic stop was sitting in the driver's seat.

The officer was taken to Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Lake Barrington and has since been released, Hoops said.

Nobody was inside the backup officer's squad car when it was hit, he said. The vehicle that had been pulled over was not involved in the crash.

The Ford's driver, Hector G. Marin, 54, of the 600 block of Minerva Avenue in Wauconda, was treated at the scene. He later was cited by Lake County Sheriff's deputies for failure to reduce speed to avoid a crash and failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, Hoops said.