A Hastings woman who died in a crash with a semi was fleeing from a West St. Paul officer, according to police.

An officer tried to pull her over for a traffic violation Monday morning in the area of Robert Street and Marie Avenue. The driver, who the Minnesota State Patrol identified Tuesday as 39-year-old Elisa Rae Norton, “almost immediately jumped the median of Robert Street” and nearly crashed head-on with a semi going the other direction, said West St. Paul Police Chief Brian Sturgeon.

The officer continued to try to stop the Chevrolet Malibu, with the squad’s lights and sirens activated, and the driver went back into the southbound lanes of Robert Street, then west on Mendota Road, and east on Minnesota 62 to eastbound Interstate 494, Sturgeon said.

Norton rear-ended a tractor trailer “at a high rate of speed” on the highway at Fifth Avenue in South St. Paul at 4:27 a.m., according to the State Patrol. She died at the scene. The driver of the semi wasn’t injured.

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