An Alabama memorial to the missing and dead of the Korean War was in pieces Monday after a vehicle being pursued by police crashed into the monument and burned.

Police in Spanish Fort, located across Mobile Bay from Mobile, told news outlets that officers there tried to question a man after seeing a suspicious truck outside a store early Sunday.

The driver took off and headed westward, crashing through a gate at Battleship Memorial Park about 8 miles away.

The vehicle then ran into the stone war memorial inside the park, breaking part of the display before it caught fire.

Flames charred the memorial, and the driver escaped by running through the smoke and fog, police said.