In an incident that will surely fan the flames of the debate over high-speed police chases, one pedestrian is dead after California Highway Patrol officers engaged in a high-speed chase near Lake Merritt Wednesday night.

A high-speed California Highway Patrol car chase of an allegedly stolen vehicle has resulted in one innocent bystander dead and at least one more injured, according to KGO. Officers were pursuing an allegedly stolen Infiniti sedan that reports say did not have license plates, with the chase occurring sometime around 7:30 or 8 pm Wednesday night in the neighborhood south of Lake Merritt.

NBC Bay Area reports a male pedestrian in hs 40s was killed by the speeding Infiniti. KTVU says that the second victim was a woman pedestrian in her 40s, who was hospitalized and is currently in stable condition.

The chase apparently began around 7:30 pm Wednesday night on Park Street near the southeast corner of Lake Merritt. The suspect vehicle hit a minivan at East 21st Street during the chase, and KGO reports that collision also left one person with “minor to moderate injuries” (this has not been confirmed by law enforcement or other media outlets). The driver continued to speed away from law enforcement, eventually hitting a fire hydrant and the pedestrians at 12th Street, before eventually crashing into a tree.

The crash comes at a highly charged time in the debate over whether law enforcement should be allowed to engage in more high-speed chases, and the degree of tolerance they are willing to accept in terms of danger to innocent bystanders.

Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell is lobbying hard for fewer restrictions on police car chases, and the city’s police commission will take up that matter soon. Governor Gavin Newsom has jumped into the debate himself, urging Oakland to allow more high-speed police chases, and threatening to eliminate Oakland’s CHP patrol protection “surge” if the city does not loosen their chase policies.

It may influence the debate that the officers in this chase might have been part of that exact surge. CHP already has the looser restrictions on high-speed car chases that Newsom wants the Oakland PD to adopt.

Or this incident may be a non-factor in that debate. CHP officers had already technically called off their chase before the fatal component of it took place. This has also been true in multiple other recent fatalities that were the result of cars speeding away from law enforcement.

Clearly there is still a lot to piece together on Wednesday night's crash. If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the Oakland Police Department Traffic Section at (510) 777-8570. Anyone with video is asked to send this to [email protected].

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Related: Police Pursuit In Antioch Leads to Deadly Four-Car Crash [SFist]

Image: Car crashed into tree. (Getty Images)