The Traffic Stop That Became a 95-MPH Pursuit: How a South Beloit Carjacking Ended in a Deadly Police Encounter

A Routine Traffic Stop Was About to Become Something Much Bigger

At first, there was nothing about the scene that suggested the morning would end with a deadly police shooting.

It was March 16, 2024.

The location was South Beloit, Illinois, just south of the Wisconsin state line.

A police officer had stopped a vehicle on Illinois Route 251.

The kind of stop that happens every day.

A patrol car pulls behind a vehicle.

The officer approaches.

Identification is requested.

A computer check is conducted.

And then the situation either ends quietly or moves on to something else.

This one moved on.

Very quickly.

The passenger inside the vehicle was 19-year-old Ray Castro. Officers discovered that he was wanted on two felony warrants and attempted to take him into custody. According to investigators, Castro resisted and a struggle began inside the vehicle.

Then the car started moving.

One officer was still inside.

Another officer was nearly struck.

The vehicle crossed the roadway and crashed into a ditch.

Castro escaped on foot.

For a moment, officers were no longer dealing with a traffic stop.

They were searching for a fleeing suspect.

But they did not yet know that the most dangerous part of the morning was still ahead.

Because Castro would soon enter a nearby business, confront a man at knifepoint, take another vehicle and begin a high-speed flight toward Wisconsin.

And waiting farther north was another police department that had no idea just how quickly the pursuit was about to arrive at its doorstep.

The Passenger Officers Wanted

The morning began at approximately 9:10 a.m.

South Beloit Police Officer Paul Reed stopped a vehicle on Route 251, north of Prairie Hill Road.

Inside the vehicle was a teenage female driver and Castro, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

According to the later investigation, officers determined that Castro was wanted on two felony warrants.

The officers asked him to get out.

He refused.

What happened next turned physical.

Police attempted to remove him from the vehicle, and Castro resisted.

The struggle became increasingly dangerous as he fought with the officers.

According to the later findings released by the Winnebago County State's Attorney, Castro pulled Officer Reed into the vehicle during the struggle.

Suddenly, the officer was no longer standing safely beside a stopped car.

He was inside it.

And the car was no longer stationary.

Castro reportedly told the teenage driver to accelerate.

She did.

The vehicle began moving away while Reed was still struggling with Castro.

Another officer was nearly struck as the vehicle pulled away.

The scene that had begun as an arrest attempt had now become a rapidly developing emergency.

Reed managed to draw his service weapon while he was pinned inside the vehicle.

He fired, striking the teenage driver in the leg.

The vehicle continued across the roadway, crossed the median and traveled through the opposing lanes before finally coming to rest in a ditch.

The driver was injured.

But Castro was not finished.

He got out.

And he ran.

The Man Who Disappeared Into the Morning

Imagine being one of the officers standing beside that wrecked vehicle.

You have just been involved in a violent struggle.

A suspect wanted on felony warrants has escaped.

The driver of the vehicle has been wounded.

And you do not know exactly where the suspect has gone.

The police radio begins filling with information.

Units are requested.

Officers begin searching.

The suspect is on foot.

And then comes another piece of information.

Castro had run toward the nearby Macktown Lounge.

That location would become the next chapter in the unfolding incident.

Inside the lounge, according to the later investigative report, Castro confronted an employee.

The confrontation was not a simple request for assistance.

Investigators said Castro demanded the man's vehicle keys and threatened him with a knife.

The employee eventually gave up the keys.

Castro took a maroon Chevrolet Trailblazer and drove away.

Now the situation had changed again.

The police were no longer searching for a man on foot.

They were looking for a stolen vehicle.

And that vehicle was moving north.

Toward Wisconsin.

A Second Vehicle, A New Escape

The significance of the second vehicle would become clear later.

The first vehicle had been connected to the original traffic stop.

The second vehicle was allegedly taken from the Macktown Lounge after the confrontation with the employee.

That meant officers now had a suspect who had already escaped an attempted arrest, fled on foot, allegedly taken another vehicle at knifepoint, and was now driving away.

The search became a pursuit.

Roscoe Police Sgt. Robert Lewis and Officer Ryan Sarver became involved.

Lewis located the maroon SUV leaving the area.

The lights and siren were activated.

The driver did not stop.

Instead, according to the investigative findings, the SUV accelerated away.

And then the speed began climbing.

The Pursuit Reaches 90 Miles Per Hour

There is a major difference between a vehicle fleeing at normal road speed and one traveling through populated areas at extreme speed.

At high speed, every intersection becomes a potential collision point.

Every pedestrian becomes a potential victim.

Every vehicle entering the roadway becomes another variable.

The investigation later determined that the pursuit reached approximately 95 miles per hour on Prairie Hill Road.

The suspect drove through intersections.

He ignored traffic controls.

He traveled into oncoming traffic.

He crossed areas used by pedestrians and cyclists.

And he moved through residential and commercial areas while police officers followed behind him.

Lewis later explained that he believed the suspect might be armed.

That belief was based in part on radio traffic from the earlier South Beloit incident, which described shots fired.

But there was an important complication.

The radio information was not entirely clear.

Investigators later determined that the initial shots reported in South Beloit had been fired by Officer Reed—not by Castro.

At the time, however, that distinction was not necessarily understood by every officer listening to the radio.

Some officers believed the suspect might have shot a woman.

Others could not confirm whether Castro actually possessed a firearm.

After Castro's death, investigators did not find a firearm on him.

But they did find another weapon.

A folding knife was recovered in connection with the later hospital examination.

So as the pursuit continued, officers were dealing with uncertainty.

They knew a man was fleeing.

They knew he had allegedly taken another vehicle.

They knew the original encounter had become violent.

They had heard reports of shots fired.

And they were watching the vehicle move faster and faster through Beloit.

Crossing the State Line

The pursuit moved north into Beloit, Wisconsin.

This was no longer solely an Illinois police operation.

Wisconsin officers became involved.

Beloit police joined the pursuit as the fleeing vehicle entered the city.

The geography mattered.

The roads were changing.

The surroundings were becoming more populated.

And the consequences of another high-speed maneuver were becoming increasingly serious.

According to the investigative report, the pursuit eventually moved through several Beloit streets.

The vehicle traveled through intersections and residential areas.

Police attempted to contain it.

Officers positioned themselves ahead.

Others followed behind.

The goal was to stop the vehicle before somebody else was hurt.

But the suspect continued.

Then came the maneuver that would bring the pursuit to its final seconds.

The PIT Maneuver

Police eventually attempted a vehicle containment maneuver commonly known as a PIT maneuver.

The tactic is designed to cause a fleeing vehicle to rotate and lose forward momentum.

In this case, the maneuver changed the position of the suspect vehicle.

But it did not immediately end the confrontation.

Instead, the vehicle moved toward Sgt. Robert Lewis's squad car.

Lewis had stopped and was preparing to respond.

Then he saw the vehicle coming toward him.

According to the later investigation, the suspect vehicle accelerated and appeared to turn directly toward the driver's side of Lewis's patrol car.

The distance disappeared quickly.

Lewis was still inside the vehicle.

There was almost no time to make a decision.

The suspect vehicle struck the driver's side of the squad car with enough force to pin the driver's door shut.

Lewis later described feeling trapped.

His vehicle was being struck.

The door was blocked.

He believed the suspect might be armed.

Other officers were nearby.

And the suspect vehicle could potentially accelerate away again.

For Lewis, the situation had become a split-second decision.

The Moment Captured on Body Camera

This is where the footage becomes particularly difficult to watch.

The camera does not show the event like a movie.

There is no soundtrack.

No narrator.

No dramatic warning.

Instead, the camera shows a police officer suddenly dealing with a vehicle that has become an immediate threat.

The windshield is damaged.

The squad car has been hit.

The suspect vehicle is extremely close.

The officer's movements are fast.

The weapon appears.

And within moments, shots are fired.

The footage is powerful because the viewer does not have the benefit of knowing everything that investigators eventually learned.

The viewer experiences the event from the officer's position.

The vehicle is coming toward him.

The car is being struck.

There is little room to maneuver.

And the decision has to be made almost immediately.

Lewis fired his service weapon.

The suspect was struck.

The pursuit ended.

But the story did not.

What Happened to Ray Castro?

After the shooting, officers moved toward the vehicle.

Emergency medical assistance was requested.

Castro was transported to a hospital.

Lewis was also taken to an Illinois hospital after suffering minor injuries in the collision.

He was later released.

No other officers were reported injured.

Castro's condition, however, was critical.

He remained hospitalized.

His family was notified.

Later that afternoon, life support was withdrawn with the family's authorization.

Ray Castro, 19, was pronounced dead.

The entire sequence—from the original traffic stop to the fatal shooting—had unfolded within a matter of hours.

A traffic stop.

A struggle.

A fleeing suspect.

An injured teenage driver.

A second vehicle allegedly taken at knifepoint.

A pursuit across the state line.

Speeds approaching 95 miles per hour.

A police containment maneuver.

A collision.

Gunfire.

And finally, a hospital room where the pursuit's last chapter ended.

The Question Investigators Had to Answer

Once the emergency was over, investigators had a very different task.

They had to determine exactly what happened.

That meant separating the incident into individual pieces.

The first shooting occurred in South Beloit.

The second shooting occurred in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Different officers were involved.

Different investigative agencies handled different portions of the case.

The Winnebago-Boone County Integrity Task Force investigated the Illinois portion.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation handled the Wisconsin officer-involved death investigation.

This distinction is important because the entire incident can look like one continuous chase when viewed from the outside.

Legally and administratively, however, it involved separate events.

The first involved Officer Paul Reed firing at the teenage driver while he was pinned inside the moving vehicle.

The second involved Sgt. Robert Lewis firing at Castro after the suspect vehicle struck Lewis's squad car.

Both shootings required review.

The First Shooting Was Reviewed

The teenage driver survived.

Her injuries were serious enough to require hospitalization, but she was reported to be in stable condition.

The question for investigators was whether Officer Reed had been justified in using deadly force.

The investigation considered the circumstances inside the vehicle.

Reed was pinned.

The vehicle was moving.

The car was crossing lanes of traffic.

The officer had limited ability to control what was happening.

The Winnebago County State's Attorney eventually concluded that Reed's use of deadly force was justified and that no criminal charges should be filed against him.

That decision dealt with the first shooting.

But investigators still had another question to answer.

What about the officer who fired the fatal shots in Wisconsin?

The Second Investigation

The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation conducted the independent investigation into Castro's death.

The investigation examined multiple forms of evidence.

Police reports.

Body-camera footage.

Squad-car video.

Photographs.

Witness statements.

Physical evidence.

And the circumstances surrounding the final collision.

The Rock County District Attorney, David O'Leary, reviewed the investigation.

The question was whether Sgt. Robert Lewis had committed a criminal offense when he fired at Castro.

The answer, announced in May 2024, was no.

The district attorney concluded that Lewis acted in self-defense and to protect officers and members of the public.

No criminal charges were filed against him.

But the report also revealed something that makes the incident more complicated than a simple “police chase ends in shooting” headline.

The Gun That Investigators Never Found

During the pursuit, Lewis believed Castro might be armed.

That belief influenced how the officer approached the final encounter.

But after Castro was shot, investigators did not find a firearm.

That detail is significant.

It means that the danger perceived by the officer and the physical evidence recovered after the shooting were not exactly the same thing.

However, investigators did find a knife connected to the earlier alleged carjacking.

The evidence showed that Castro had allegedly used a folding knife during the confrontation at the Macktown Lounge.

So while a firearm was not recovered, the investigation established that the fleeing suspect had allegedly used another weapon during the escape.

This distinction is one of the reasons the body-camera footage needs to be viewed alongside the investigation rather than interpreted in isolation.

A video can show what an officer saw.

An investigation attempts to reconstruct everything surrounding that moment.

Why the Final Seconds Matter

The most important part of the footage may not actually be the moment the gun is fired.

It may be the few seconds before it.

Watch the vehicle.

Watch the patrol car.

Watch the distance between them.

Watch how quickly the suspect vehicle changes direction.

And then watch what happens to the police vehicle.

The final collision was not simply two cars meeting accidentally.

According to the district attorney's review, Castro's vehicle turned toward Lewis's squad car and struck the driver's side.

Lewis was inside.

The door was pinned.

He believed he could be crushed.

At the same time, other officers and members of the public were nearby.

The decision therefore unfolded under extreme time pressure.

The district attorney concluded that Lewis's actions were legally justified.

That is the official finding after review of the evidence.

A Pursuit Built on Uncertainty

One of the most interesting aspects of the case is how much uncertainty surrounded the officers during the pursuit.

They knew Castro was wanted.

They knew he had fled.

They knew the initial traffic stop had become violent.

They knew the vehicle involved in the second part of the chase had allegedly been taken from another person.

They heard “shots fired” over the radio.

But the information being transmitted was not always complete.

Some officers believed a woman had been shot by the suspect.

In reality, the teenage driver had been shot by Officer Reed.

That difference matters because police officers making decisions during an active pursuit do not have the luxury of waiting for a complete investigative report.

They have to act on the information available at that moment.

That information can be incomplete.

It can be misunderstood.

It can change.

And sometimes, by the time the full picture becomes clear, the most important decision has already been made.

The Human Cost

There is another side of the story that can easily disappear behind the words “high-speed pursuit.”

The people involved were not simply characters in a police video.

The teenage driver was injured.

Officer Reed was involved in a struggle that left him inside a moving vehicle.

Sgt. Lewis was struck by the fleeing vehicle and later treated for injuries.

Other officers were forced to respond to an unfolding emergency across jurisdictions.

And Castro's family eventually had to face the death of a 19-year-old.

For the officers, the incident became part of their professional lives.

For the family of the deceased, it became a permanent personal loss.

For the driver who survived the first shooting, it became an event that would likely remain with her for years.

And for witnesses in Beloit, it was an extraordinary scene in the middle of an ordinary Saturday morning.

The Road After the Gunfire

More than 40 first responders were ultimately involved in the broader response, according to the later investigative account.

The streets had to be secured.

Evidence had to be collected.

Vehicles had to be documented.

Witnesses had to be interviewed.

The damaged Roscoe squad car became physical evidence of the final moments.

The body-camera footage became another piece of evidence.

Every second mattered.

Investigators needed to understand where every vehicle had been.

They needed to reconstruct the pursuit.

They needed to understand the movements of Castro and the officers.

And they needed to determine whether the use of deadly force violated criminal law.

Months later, the legal question had been answered.

No criminal charges would be filed against Sgt. Lewis.

And the Illinois review similarly concluded that Officer Reed's use of deadly force during the first confrontation was justified.

What the Video Shows—and What It Doesn't

Police body-camera videos are powerful because they put viewers close to events that would otherwise be difficult to imagine.

But the footage is still only one perspective.

It cannot show everything that happened outside the camera's field of view.

It cannot automatically reveal what every person knew at every moment.

It cannot tell viewers what information was being transmitted over the radio unless the audio captures it.

And it cannot replace the investigative process.

That is why the later findings are important.

The video is one part of the record.

The reports are another.

The witness accounts are another.

Physical evidence provides another layer.

Together, those sources allow investigators to reconstruct the event.

And in this case, that reconstruction eventually led prosecutors to conclude that the officers' shootings did not warrant criminal charges.

From Traffic Stop to Deadly Encounter

Look back at the beginning.

The vehicle was stopped.

Officers discovered a wanted passenger.

They attempted an arrest.

The passenger resisted.

The vehicle moved.

The driver was shot.

The suspect escaped.

A second vehicle was allegedly taken at knifepoint.

The stolen SUV crossed into Wisconsin.

Police pursued.

The speed reached approximately 95 miles per hour.

The suspect drove through intersections and residential areas.

Police attempted to stop the vehicle.

The vehicle turned toward Sgt. Lewis's squad car.

The squad car was struck.

Lewis fired.

Castro was wounded.

And later, he died in the hospital.

That is the complete arc of the incident.

But seeing the body-camera footage makes the timeline feel different.

Because the footage removes the distance created by written reports.

Suddenly, the viewer is there.

Inside the police vehicle.

Looking through the damaged windshield.

Watching the suspect vehicle move.

Waiting to see what happens next.

And then, in an instant, the entire scene changes.

The Final Chapter Was Written Months Later

The shooting itself lasted only moments.

The investigation lasted much longer.

That is often the hidden part of an officer-involved shooting.

The public sees the dramatic conclusion.

Investigators spend months reconstructing what led to it.

In this case, the Wisconsin Department of Justice completed its investigation and forwarded the findings for prosecutorial review.

Rock County District Attorney David O'Leary ultimately concluded that Sgt. Robert Lewis acted lawfully and in self-defense.

The district attorney's office said there was no basis for criminal prosecution based on Lewis's actions.

The Illinois shooting was also reviewed separately.

Winnebago County State's Attorney J. Hanley concluded that Officer Paul Reed's use of deadly force during the initial struggle was justified and that no criminal charges would be filed.

With those decisions, the legal chapter of the case largely closed.

But the footage remained.

And that footage tells a story that written reports cannot quite capture.

The Seconds Before Everything Changed

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about this incident is how ordinary the first few minutes looked.

There was no obvious sign that the scene would eventually stretch across a state line.

There was no reason for a person driving nearby to expect a 95-mph pursuit.

There was no indication that a police vehicle would soon be rammed.

And there was certainly no way for the officers involved to know exactly how the morning would end.

One decision led to another.

An attempted arrest led to a struggle.

The struggle led to a fleeing vehicle.

The fleeing vehicle led to a foot chase.

The foot chase led to an alleged carjacking.

The alleged carjacking led to a second pursuit.

The pursuit led into Wisconsin.

And the Wisconsin pursuit ended with a police vehicle being struck and an officer firing his weapon.

Each event created the conditions for the next.

That is what makes this case so compelling.

It was not one dramatic moment appearing out of nowhere.

It was a chain of events.

And once that chain began, it moved remarkably fast.

What Happened in the End?

Ray Castro, 19, died after being shot by Roscoe Police Sgt. Robert Lewis in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Lewis survived the collision with minor injuries.

Officer Paul Reed survived the first confrontation.

The teenage driver survived being shot in the leg.

No criminal charges were filed against either officer for the two shootings after separate reviews.

And the body-camera and squad-video evidence became an important part of the public record.

The original traffic stop lasted only a short time.

But the consequences lasted months.

For investigators, the job was to reconstruct what happened.

For prosecutors, the task was to determine whether the officers' actions violated criminal law.

For the public, the released footage provided an opportunity to see the confrontation for themselves.

And for the families involved, the story was never simply a headline.

It was their reality.

Watch the Full Body-Camera Video