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Rock Island County State’s Attorney explains dropped charges for woman who drove across I-74 bridge walkway

Half of the initial charges have been dropped for Chhabria Harris, the woman who allegedly killed two people while driving on the walkway, but that's not unusual.

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Several charges for the woman accused of killing two people after driving across the interstate 74 pedestrian walkway, Chhabria Harris, have been dropped.

Harris initially faced 14 different charges, but now, she faces just seven after half of the charges were dropped.

RELATED: Some criminal charges dismissed for driver in fatal I-74 bike path crash

The dropped charges include two class A misdemeanors, three class four felonies and two class three felonies.

Rock Island County State’s Attorney, Dora Villarreal said it isn’t uncommon for charges to be dropped in criminal cases like this.

“It's actually very common, especially when we have anything involving cars or traffic incidents, because there will be some initial citations that are given by the officers. Some initial traffic's that are going to be filed immediately by the officers, especially when we are holding someone and we know that there will be more charges added later on,” Villarreal said.

She also pointed out, that many duplicate charges were also removed.

“For example. If there are, you know, there can only be you know, one leaving the scene involving a death. There can't be several of those, since it is only one act of leaving the scene. Whereas we have as of right now we have three victims. That can be three separate cases or charges. But the leaving the scene is only one act, so only one charge,” Villarreal said.

When it comes to how the dropped charges may affect Harris' possible sentencing, Villarreal's simple answer is: it won't.

"We believe that we have very good evidence on this case, this was an extremely tragic incident. We are still pursuing it, you know, to the maximum degree that we can, and we do feel pretty confident in the evidence that the state has at this time," she said "but there is no change in the potential sentence, potential time that ms. Harris could be facing."

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