Local News in Brief : Officer in High-Speed Chase Hurt as Car Crashes Into Trees

A Los Angeles police officer chasing a sports car in a hilly section of Woodland Hills was injured Sunday afternoon when his squad car ran up an embankment and crashed into a stand of trees.

The officer, Walter Hogue, 38, was traveling north at more than 60 m.p.h. on Canoga Avenue, pursuing the driver of a Mini Cooper when the 4 p.m. accident occurred, neighbors reported.

Police late Sunday arrested Gregory J. Papazian, 31, of Sherman Oaks on suspicion of felony hit-and-run driving, said Lt. John Mitchell. Papazian was being held in the Van Nuys Jail in lieu of bail.

Hogue was in satisfactory condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center with a broken vertebra, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Troy Lewis, a resident of the 4400 block of Canoga Avenue, said Hogue’s car ran up an embankment in front of his house, became airborne for about 40 feet, skidded across the street, crashed through a chain-link fence and came to rest alongside the eighth tee of the Woodland Hills Country Club golf course.

George Ross, who watched the chase from his front yard, said that, two minutes before the crash, the Mini Cooper had raced by his house southbound on Canoga Avenue with the squad car about four car lengths behind.

“When they came back,” he said, “the squad car was two blocks behind and the Mini was pulling away.”