report studied 421 police pursuits<\/a> in the county that were reported to the California Highway Patrol and found that suspects were immediately apprehended in 67% of the chases, leaving 139 pursuits that did not end in an arrest. Fifty-nine involved vehicles escaping, and 47 ended because police abandoned the pursuit, usually for safety reasons.<\/p>\nOften, police find suspects later, using fingerprints and other means. In the case of the Sunday chase, police are processing forensics from the stolen vehicles including a loaded gun discovered to see whether that can link them to the suspects. But it\u2019s unclear whether the weapon belonged to the men inside the vehicle. <\/p>\n
In recent years, some agencies have changed their procedures \u2014 backing off chases in hopes of avoiding crashes that could injure innocent bystanders. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to injure or kill any innocent bystanders. That\u2019s a greater tragedy than letting these guys get away,\u201d said Ed Obayashi, a Northern California deputy and policing expert. <\/p>\n
According to statistics presented to the police commission, the LAPD was involved in 1,116 pursuits in 2024 \u2014 the most chases since at least 2018. A little more than 30% resulted in some kind of crash. But the department has seen a decline this year.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s chase began around 9:45 p.m. when two suspects stole a white Ford F-250 truck near 20th Street East and Lancaster Boulevard in Lancaster. The owner of the vehicle chased the suspects, but retreated when they opened fire, according to the Sheriff\u2019s Department. <\/p>\n
That was just the beginning of what became a long night for the suspects and law enforcement. <\/p>\n
At one point, video shows, the men were driving the wrong way on a freeway with what appeared to be a shredded tire. The truck slowed and the passenger jumped out, apparently attempting to carjack a white sedan whose driver quickly locked the doors.<\/p>\n
The passenger got back in the Ford and they continued a short distance before they stopped again and tried to carjack a big rig. But the semi-truck\u2019s driver threw it in reverse and the suspect abandoned the plan, jumping back into the Ford and continuing on. <\/p>\n
Moments later, the suspect driving the Ford slammed the vehicle into the front of another semi-truck carrying milk. He ran to the passenger side of the massive rig and unlocked the door from the cracked window as the truck driver fled, video shows.<\/p>\n
They drove the truck, which had \u201cGot Milk\u201d signs displayed on the mud flaps, along the 5 Freeway and 101 Freeway through Studio City, Hollywood and downtown and at times went onto surface streets.<\/p>\n
Eventually, they stopped the truck at a 10 Freeway underpass near Alameda and Newton streets and ditched the big rig. <\/p>\n
Video from the scene shows California Highway Patrol officers surrounding the massive vehicle before eventually realizing the driver and passenger were gone. Those watching at home thought maybe the suspects had made a quick escape. <\/p>\n
But, police were still on them. <\/p>\n
Authorities say they jumped into a third vehicle \u2014 a white Chevrolet Silverado truck \u2014 before taking off to Boyle Heights. The suspects eventually abandoned the Silverado on Mission Road under the 101 Freeway underpass and escaped, officials said. <\/p>\n
Obayashi, the policing expert, said it\u2019s becoming more common for suspects to drive under overpasses \u2014 out of the view of helicopters \u2014 because the ground units are staying back for safety reasons, giving them a chance to make their escape. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey go through the aqueducts or other exits and someone could be waiting for them,\u201d Obayashi said, adding that police often don\u2019t have time to react and set up a perimeter. \u201cThe lag time is such that that gives the suspects enough time to disappear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, Acevedo said there\u2019s a good chance police will be able to catch up with the suspects, even days later. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much technology out there that\u2019s capturing information that hopefully they\u2019ll be able to find them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They may end up being the ones that got away. A wild police pursuit Sunday was already notable…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,7728,6123,85177,2961,13459,224,5337,53504,7207,14155,1404,7238,6620,40031,85178,6189,2325,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-143458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-chase","11":"tag-driver","12":"tag-freeway-overpass","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-lancaster","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-passenger","18":"tag-police","19":"tag-pursuit","20":"tag-sunday","21":"tag-suspect","22":"tag-time","23":"tag-truck","24":"tag-tv-helicopter","25":"tag-vehicle","26":"tag-video-show","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115023745209475642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}