Police Chase Driver With 4 Children 112 Miles

A seemingly routine call about a domestic disturbance led police on a 112-mile, high-speed chase from San Fernando to southern Orange County, where a 27-year-old San Fernando man was arrested Saturday when he ran out of gas, San Fernando police said.

Roberto Garcia Diaz was being held on $30,000 bail in San Fernando Jail Saturday afternoon after a wild ride with his four young children in tow, San Fernando Police Sgt. Ernie Halcon said.

Halcon said Diaz was being held on suspicion of felony child endangering, reckless driving, evading arrest and wife beating.

“The entire pursuit was between 90 and 110 miles per hour,” Halcon said. “I think it’s just a matter of luck that we don’t have some dead children here.”

Telephone Complaint

Halcon said the incident began about 9:30 a.m., when police went to the Diaz home in the 700 block of Lazard Street in response to a telephone complaint from Diaz’s wife that her husband had assaulted her.

Diaz, who had driven off in his van with the four children by the time police arrived, returned to the home but raced away when he saw police there, Halcon said.

Headed South

Diaz raced down the Foothill Freeway to Pasadena with police in pursuit, then doubled back to the west on that freeway, took the Glendale Freeway south, and then headed south on the Golden State-Santa Ana Freeway into Orange County.

With San Fernando police, California Highway Patrol units and a Pasadena police helicopter in pursuit, Diaz eventually turned off the Santa Ana Freeway at La Paz Road near Laguna Niguel and ran out of gas a few miles later at Crown Valley Parkway, Halcon said.

Diaz bailed out of his van, jumped a fence and ran into a yard, where police arrested him without resistance at 10:55 a.m., Halcon said. He said the children, who range in age from about 1 to 5 years, were shaken but unhurt.

Halcon, who would not give the name of Diaz’s wife, said the 28-year-old woman told officers that Diaz struck her when she complained “about the fact that he’d been drinking too much lately.”