Two injured in Hammond patrol-car crash; SUV driver arrested

The collision happened at approximately 11:15 p.m. Thursday, October 29, 2026, on the eastbound Borman Expressway—Interstate 80/94—near Indianapolis Boulevard. Police released details the following day. October 30 is the release and reporting date, not the local calendar date of the crash.⁠1⁠9

Police identified the driver as Christopher Idom, 34, of Blue Island, Illinois. They said his black Infiniti SUV hit the back of the patrol car while the trooper was parked on the shoulder. Additional reporting identified the trooper as Brayden Schrock and placed him on the inside shoulder.⁠1⁠11

Schrock and the Indiana State Police intern received hospital treatment. The reports do not specify their individual injuries, whether they were discharged or whether their conditions subsequently changed. The distinction between the occupants matters: the injured passengers were a trooper and an intern, not two police officers.⁠8⁠10

The reported basis for the intoxication allegation is the investigating troopers’ account of Idom’s appearance and behavior. According to Indiana State Police, as reported by CBS Chicago, he had bloodshot, watery eyes, smelled of alcohol and appeared impaired. Those are police observations, not a laboratory measurement of alcohol concentration.⁠1

Police also said Idom refused field sobriety tests, a portable breath test and a chemical test. Investigators then obtained a search warrant for a blood draw before taking him to the Lake County Jail. The refusals and warrant are part of the reported investigation; they do not establish what a blood test found.⁠1

No blood-alcohol measurement or other laboratory result is established in the available reporting. That leaves an important limit on what can be said: police have described why they suspected impairment, but the account does not supply a test result confirming an alcohol concentration. Nor does it establish that the collision was deliberate.⁠1

CBS Chicago’s October 30 report lists two counts of operating while intoxicated and one count of operating a vehicle with a suspended registration. It separately reports citations for unsafe lane movement and operating without financial responsibility. The registration allegation is not another intoxication count, and the traffic citations should not be folded into the reported three-count charge list.⁠1

There is a distinction between that reported list and a verified court case. CBS described Idom as charged but said court information was not immediately available. WBBM and FOX 32 accounts describe preliminary charges. Without a defendant-specific charging document, the available material does not establish whether or when prosecutors filed those counts in court.⁠1⁠3⁠4

The legal classifications are also unresolved. The reports do not supply statutory subsections or establish whether either intoxication count carries an injury-related enhancement. The fact that two occupants were injured does not, on its own, identify the legal basis for the two reported intoxication counts. A charging document is needed to make that connection, if one exists.

These remain accusations, not findings of guilt. The next court appearance has not been established, and an arrest does not settle either the laboratory evidence or the precise case prosecutors may pursue. For now, the clearest account is of a rear-end collision that sent two patrol-car occupants for treatment, followed by a police investigation alleging impairment—not a completed account of the court proceedings.⁠1