READING, Pa. – Authorities say a 22-year-old Reading man is dead following a police pursuit that led officers in and out of the city on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Berks County coroner has identified the driver as Luis Antonio Cruz Hernandez.<\/p>\n
According to the investigation, Reading police attempted to stop Hernandez for a traffic violation and excessive speed when he led city officers on a chase around the city.<\/p>\n
During the pursuit, the motorcycle traveled to the intersection of North 9th Street and Green Street, where it collided with a 2017 Acura SUV, the coroner says.<\/p>\n
Hernandez was transported to Reading Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:41 p.m. Monday, the coroner says.<\/p>\n
“The motorcyclist was tossed from the vehicle and succumbed to his injuries,” said District Attorney John Adams.<\/p>\n
Adams says the driver was being pulled over for multiple vehicle violations, but then took off.<\/p>\n
“He was driving in a manner that was unsafe for not only himself but also for the public and the police officer,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
“I’m seeing too often that individuals are taking off. Pursuits are taking place, and these pursuits generally don’t turn out very well for anyone,” Adams said.<\/p>\n
“I think we’ve seen too many motorcycles in the city that disregard basic traffic laws,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Berks County DA says police were well within their rights for how the events unfolded Monday night.<\/p>\n
“I do not know at this point if he had outstanding warrants, or if he had a license. I don’t know if he was licensed. This was a simple traffic stop,” Adams said.<\/p>\n
“Very sad for that individual. Very sad for that family. Respect the law. When they signal for you to turn over please pull over,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
An autopsy was conducted on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, at Reading Hospital.<\/p>\n
The Berks County coroner says Hernandez’s cause of death was determined to be multiple blunt force injuries, and the manner of death was ruled accidental.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Authorities say a 22-year-old Reading man is dead following a police pursuit that led officers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,6977,1973,736,128,130,129,10085],"class_list":["post-264205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-fatal-crash","tag-motorcyclist","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-suv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}