Two women are dead and a child is injured after a carjacking suspect fleeing police crashed into a vehicle at a busy north Minneapolis intersection on Thursday morning, according to police.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said in a news conference his department was alerted to reports of a person with a gun on East Lake Street and Fourth Avenue South just after 8 a.m., which was soon updated to a carjacking in progress.

Witnesses said a man driving a maroon Ford Explorer was traveling in a "flagrantly reckless manner," speeding and swerving into oncoming traffic, and even driving on sidewalks on Lake Street, O'Hara said.

The suspect crashed the Explorer, then tried to carjack a motorist at a red light at gunpoint. That motorist was able to drive away, but the suspect then "violently carjacked" a woman in a black Volkswagen.

WCCO's Ubah Ali spoke with Coon Rapids resident Hassan Abo Habar, who said he narrowly escaped the suspect.

"He just put the gun outside the window and he call me, 'Yo, come here,' here in the McDonald's, and then … I try to run from him," Habar said.

O'Hara said the suspect sped off, but then circled back to "retrieve three dogs from the Explorer." After getting the dogs, the suspect drove off while firing gunshots.

At about 8:19 a.m., O'Hara said the suspect was seen driving recklessly downtown, and then was spotted driving in north Minneapolis at 8:36 a.m. Officers initiated a pursuit, which "ended tragically three minutes later when the suspect crashed into an innocent vehicle" on Highway 55 near Penn Avenue North, the chief said.

O'Hara stressed that no squad cars were involved in the collision, and the squad pursuing the suspect was "fully-marked."

The two women inside the other vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene, while a 6-year-old passenger with them suffered survivable injuries, according to O'Hara. The women were identified late Thursday as Marisa Ardys Casebolt and Liberty Borg. Both were 25 years old.

The suspect, a 45-year-old man from St. Paul, was arrested at the crash scene and transported to North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, where he is being treated for non-life threatening injuries. 

O'Hara said a gun was recovered from the suspect's stolen car. Two of the dogs inside were hurt in the crash, but the third was eventually euthanized due to its injuries.

"This is an outcome that we never want, as two innocent lives have been taken from us because of one person's violent and reckless behavior," O'Hara said during the news conference. "This is exactly why we take carjackings and gun crime so seriously, because they put every member of our community at risk."  

When asked about his department's pursuit policy, O'Hara described their rules as "stringent."

"We've been criticized recently — because of all the smash-and-grabs and stolen cars that have affected literally hundreds of residents — for having a pursuit policy that does not allow pursuits in those cases," he said. "We have to balance the need to apprehend, you know, in this case a dangerous and violent gunman, with the risk that these pursuits pose to the public. So we limit our pursuits only to those cases where we believe an immediate apprehension is necessary to protect the community from a violent criminal."

O'Hara said his department is leading the Lake Street carjacking investigation, while the Minnesota State Patrol is leading the crash investigation.

The interim executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, David Titus, called for tougher penalties for violent offenders in response to the fatal crash.

"Two innocent women are dead and a child is injured solely because of the reckless, violent actions of a criminal who carjacked at gunpoint with shots fired — and then fled police through Minneapolis rush-hour traffic. Enough is enough," Titus said in a statement.