A dangerous police chase that lasted more than two hours across Los Angeles on Sunday came to a dramatic end with an intense PIT maneuver performed by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) on the freeway, ABC 7 reports.
The chase involved two different vehicles, first with a black sedan that was possibly stolen, and ended with a white sedan whose wheel had come off and was scraping the road, sending out sparks. The chase began just after 8 p.m., when Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers began pursuing a black sedan that they suspected was stolen based on its license plate number. according to To ABC 7.
According to the media, the vehicle was traveling at near-legal speeds through the neighborhoods of South Gate, Huntington Park and East Los Angeles, occasionally running red lights but was not otherwise driving recklessly. Despite the presence of at least five police SUVs, officers refrained from using a PIT maneuver in the early stages of the pursuit due to concerns that the suspect may have been armed.
According to ABC7, the pursuit escalated after about 75 minutes when the driver of the black sedan abandoned his car in a commercial parking lot and jumped into a waiting white sedan. The second vehicle then sped off at high speeds, reaching speeds of over 75 mph on surface roads and over 100 mph on freeways, including the 101 and 710, at times even driving without its headlights on.
More than 60 Los Angeles Police Department vehicles are parked on McClintock Street near the west entrance of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California on April 28, 2024. (Photo by JASON GOODE/AFP via Getty Images)
The pursuit continued south on the freeway toward Long Beach, and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) took over from the Los Angeles Police Department as the suspects headed north on the 110 and onto surface roads in southeast Los Angeles. For a moment it appeared the vehicles crashed and the suspects fled on foot, but the white sedan then veered onto the 105 Freeway, where the CHP performed a PIT maneuver, causing the vehicle to spin out and lose a wheel. (Related article: Fog causes 35-vehicle collision along major highway, 2 dead, 9 injured)
Two men and a woman eventually exited the disabled vehicle and turned themselves in to police. The highway was briefly closed afterward, but the suspects were taken into custody, according to ABC 7. The LAPD later confirmed that the original driver of the black Lexus was not in the white vehicle and was arrested separately.
