SEATTLE - The man driving a stolen car that struck and killed a Seattle officer on her way to work had a long criminal history, including a 2003 incident when he tried to hit a deputy with a car he had stolen, Seattle Police said Monday afternoon.

The man driving the stolen car also died and his female passenger was injured.

Officer Elizabeth Nowak was driving to work around 3 a.m. on Elliott Avenue near Prospect, south of the Magnolia Bridge, when her car was broadsided.

Seattle P.D.

Seattle Police officer Elizabeth Nowak was killed in a crash with a stolen car as she was on her way to work, Nov. 13, 2006.

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske was at the scene of the accident and said Nowak, 30, had been on the force for just a few months. She had been a police officer at with the police department in Racine, Wis., for about five years before coming to Seattle.

"She has only been out on her own for a week," said a visibly shaken Kerlikowske.

KING5 News contacted the Racine Journal Times and was told Nowak had joined the Racine Police Department in 2001, spent a year in Iraq with the Air Force in 2003 and rejoined the police department in 2003. She left for Seattle in May of last year.

"It was her dream to come to the big city," Kerlikowske said.

According to Kerlikowske, Nowak was on her way to work at the East Precinct. She had apparently just pulled out of her driveway when she was hit by the speeding stolen car. It did not have its lights on.

"You can see from the damage of the vehicles it was a pretty horrific scene," he said.

Nowak and the driver of the stolen car, Neal Ryan Kelley, 35, were killed in the crash. A passenger in the stolen car was taken to Harborview Medical Center where she is in the Intensive Care Unit.

According to police, Kelley had 20 felony convictions dating back to 1987 and frequently used stolen vehicles as weapons against responding officers. In an incident on Jan. 10, 2003, he tried to hit a deputy with a car he had stolen. In that instance, King County deputies shot Kelley.

Seattle Police are extremely upset at the circumstances of Nowak's death.

"There is no way that this individual should have been on the streets of Seattle. There is no way that he should have been in a stolen vehicle and there's no way that he should have caused this accident, " said Deanna Nollette with the Seattle Police Department.

KING

The Seattle police officer's car was t-boned by a stolen vehicle on Elliott Avenue, killing both the officer and the driver of the stolen car. A passenger in the stolen car was injured.

At first, responding officers didn't know it was one of their own that was in the crash.

"There were a pair of uniform pants," found in the car according to Kerlikowske. They had to do a license plate check and search of their employee database to find out who she was.

"Because she was brand new, she wasn't recognized at first," said the chief.

Nowak worked in the same precinct and on the same shift as another rookie policeman, Joselito Barber, who died in a car crash three months ago today. Barber, 26, died in a broadside collision.

A speeding driver ran a red light and hit Barber's patrol car on Yesler and 23rd Avenue at about 4 a.m., Aug. 13. Barber had been on the job two months.