Man driving stolen police cruiser dies in crash on the 110 Freeway in downtown L.A.
A man driving a stolen South Pasadena police cruiser died in a crash Thursday on the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles, police said.
An officer stopped his patrol car on the 110 at 3:30 a.m. after noticing an apparently disabled school bus in the center median, but the bus driver told the officer he had stopped because he had seen a downed motorcycle in lanes, according to the South Pasadena Police Department.
The bus driver told the officer that he had pulled the motorcycle out of the freeway lanes and unsuccessfully tried looking for the rider, police said.
The officer also searched but found no one. As the officer talked to the bus driver to get more information, he noticed a man walking toward his patrol car, police said.
As the man climbed into police car through the passenger’s door, the officer ran toward the car to disable it, but a struggle erupted between the officer and man over control of the vehicle, police said.
The man was able to get control of the patrol car, dragging the officer briefly as he drove off.
He later crashed on the transition road from the northbound 110 to the southbound 101 Freeway.
When officers arrived at the crash scene, they found the man dead in the driver’s seat. The officer was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
“At this point in the investigation, we have no information regarding the motive of the suspect and if he was in fact the rider of the motorcycle that went down,” police said in a statement.
The transition road was closed for several hours as police investigated the fatal crash.
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UPDATES:
3:25 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the crash.
This article was originally published at 8:20 a.m.
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