Police on Friday were investigating why a Palatine man apparently deliberately rammed his sport-utility vehicle into a private school in Palatine.
Gerald Fanelli, 53, was hospitalized in critical condition Friday after the incident at the Quest Academy building, 500 N. Benton St. No other injuries were reported. Police had not been able to question him.
No one was in the school at the time of the crash, and no classes had been scheduled for Friday, a teacher in-service day, said Paulette Yanow, marketing and development director for the school, which is for gifted students.
Witnesses told police they saw Fanelli pull into a parking lot near the Palatine school just before midnight Thursday. Fanelli allegedly accelerated and drove into the building, police said.
“He backed up to the farthest point away from the school and took a straight shot at it,” Police Cmdr. Jim Haider said.
The sport-utility vehicle crashed into a 2nd-grade classroom, leaving a large hole in the brick wall and destroying several desks, Yanow said.
“It went cleanly in the middle of that classroom,” she said, adding that it missed a bank of computers by about 3 feet.
Police found Fanelli trapped in his vehicle. He was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Police did not know what prompted the crash, and no charges have been filed.
Fanelli, of the 100 block of West Brandon Court, did not appear to have had any relationship with the school. He neither worked there nor had children attending it, Haider and Yanow said.
“Our main concern, of course, was that we are able now to quickly regroup and have a safe place for the kids to come to school Monday morning,” Yanow said. Teachers set up a temporary classroom in the library.
The crash also damaged an interior wall in a music room, Yanow said. The exterior brick wall was boarded up, and engineers determined that there was no structural damage.
The school did not have a damage estimate.
“We’re so lucky, how self-contained the damage was,” Yanow said. “It could have been much worse.”
