Police chase veers into the bizarre
Mustang driver does doughnuts on Sunset, high-fives bystanders.
It had all the ingredients for a classic, made-for-Los Angeles police chase: a convertible with its top down performing doughnuts on Sunset Boulevard, people cheering from the sidewalk, a leisurely cruise past the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a close call with a TMZ tour bus.
Naturally, the rainy-day chase ended on a narrow residential street with two suspects sharing hugs and handshakes with a growing crowd — and lots of selfies. The wild pursuit ended with the two men surrendering to Los Angeles County sheriff ’s deputies without incident.
The chase lasted about two hours and began with a report of a residential burglary in Cerritos at 1:24 p.m., after a rainstorm moved into Southern California. The burglars fled the home on Charlwood Street before deputies arrived, but neighbors were able to describe the suspects’ vehicle, a Ford
Mustang convertible. Within minutes, a sheriff ’s helicopter spotted the car on the westbound 91 Freeway.
Authorities said the roads were too wet and the Mustang was weaving through traffic too dangerously for deputies to follow it, so they relied on a helicopter to monitor the vehicle instead.
But when the Mustang reached the interchange of the 110 and 101 freeways in downtown L.A., the California Highway Patrol briefly took up the chase. The Mustang got off at Sunset Boulevard. By that time it had already rear-ended one vehicle, and the passenger had stood up and waved at other drivers.
On Sunset, with no police behind them, the driver began doing doughnuts in the middle of the street, spinning across all lanes of traffic and forcing other cars to stop. The car then moved onto Hollywood Boulevard, where countless tourists got to see the Mustang drive against traffic by the TCL Chinese Theatre and Hollywood Walk of Fame.
From there, it was up to the Hollywood Hills, where the Mustang drove into opposite lanes around blind curves, narrowly missing oncoming traffic, and fishtailed on rain-slick roads.
Without any vehicles close behind, the driver drove back through Hollywood’s tourist district and onto the freeway, where it was almost trapped by a TMZ tour bus that cut it off as it tried to split two lanes.
TMZ addressed the runin with the pursuit suspects on its website.
“We’ve spoken to the driver ... who says he never even saw the chase coming behind him. He was innocently changing lanes and ended up cutting off the suspects,” TMZ said.
The Mustang sped onto Figueroa Street near USC, where LAPD officers twice tried to deploy spike strips to no avail. Somewhere along the way, however, the car’s front right tire was thrashed. The car was driving on its rim by the time it reached 51st Street and Central Avenue at 3:30 p.m., where the driver and passenger were met by a throng of bystanders. No police officers were in sight.
After hugging and highfiving bystanders and taking selfies for about six minutes, the men crossed their hands behind their backs and approached sheriff ’s deputies, who had just arrived to take them into custody.
LAPD Capt. Andy Neiman said the long delay between the men stopping and their arrest was deliberate. The men were in LAPD territory but were being chased for a crime that occurred outside the department’s jurisdiction, he said.
“It was a nonviolent property crime…. In terms of priority, you need to weigh all the circumstances,” Neiman said. “The two suspects didn’t appear to be trying to hide anywhere, almost sitting and waiting. You could see them take property out of their pockets and hand it to people like they knew they were going to be arrested. It was sort of surreal to watch.”
Dennis Zine, a former city councilman who spent 47 years with the LAPD as an officer and reserve, said it was one of the 10 most bizarre pursuits he could recall. “I have been involved in a lot of pursuits but I haven’t seen anything quite like that,” he said. “The highfives at the end were ridiculous.”