Wrong-Way Suspect Captured After Wild Freeway Chase

A wrong-way driver speeding north on the southbound San Diego Freeway in a stolen pickup truck led police on a 25-mile chase Tuesday through commuter traffic from Fountain Valley to Torrance, where officers finally blocked all lanes of the freeway.

During the chase, the driver of the silver-and-black pickup reportedly tried to ram police cars and motorcycle officers who had stopped traffic along the chase route. But no injuries were reported.

The identities of the driver and his passenger, both juveniles from El Monte, were not immediately available.

The suspects, who traveled for almost 30 minutes at speeds up to 70 m.p.h. in the wrong direction, were stopped at Normandie Avenue by a blockade of California Highway Patrol cars across all southbound lanes of California 405. The pair drove near the center divider on the median strip throughout the chase.

The pickup, which had been reported stolen in Huntington Beach, was first spotted on the Euclid Avenue on-ramp to the freeway at 5:52 p.m. by Fountain Valley Detective Mike Becker, according to police dispatchers.

Becker noticed the pickup closely following a van that had been reported stolen in Fountain Valley just five minutes earlier, Fountain Valley Police Lt. David Brokaw said.

“The van went into a residential area in Fountain Valley, and the pickup truck went on the freeway,” Brokaw said.

Two juveniles, also from El Monte, abandoned the van along a residential street in Fountain Valley and were arrested after a short chase on foot, Brokaw said.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Lee Pepka, who heard a police broadcast of the truck’s description, gave chase after he saw it traveling on Talbert Avenue.

The pickup went east on Talbert, swerved, headed south on Euclid and got held up in traffic. Pepka eased closer with his amber lights on, but the pickup sped off into traffic. Pepka turned on his siren and the chase began, “in and out of traffic, all over the place,” he said.

The pickup headed for the southbound on-ramp to the San Diego Freeway but was again trapped in traffic. The driver gunned it over the center divider onto the south-bound off-ramp and hurtled onto the highway the wrong way, Pepka said.

“All I could think about was these guys are gonna kill somebody,” he said later at police headquarters. “At least I could warn people with my flashing light and siren. And that’s what I did.

“There’s a lot of innocent people out there. What was I going to do? Let him run over someone or do something about it?”

As Pepka and the suspects sped up the center divider, Westminster Police Officer Jack Davidson heard about the chase on the radio and set out to slow traffic and give Pepka some running room at the Slater overpass. In the resulting gap in traffic, the pickup swerved toward Davidson and almost ran him down, Pepka said.

Davidson joined the chase.

Cars Headed North

The cars headed north to the Valley View interchange, where a Garden Grove officer was trying to hold up traffic. Again, the pickup swerved off the center divider toward the officer.

“I thought he was going to hit him,” Pepka said.

Instead, the truck cut back, skidded on two wheels and headed straight for a California Highway Patrol officer who had gotten off his motorcycle.

“The only reason that guy’s alive is he jumped over the divider,” Pepka said. “I was thinking this guy just didn’t want to get caught, and if he had to kill a cop, fine.

“I was also thinking this guy doesn’t deserve to get away.”

The chase reached speeds of up to 70 m.p.h. and dipped to 40 m.p.h. before it ended at the Normandie Avenue roadblock at 6:21 p.m.

From Beach Boulevard north, a Costa Mesa helicopter kept watch. “It felt good that I didn’t have to broadcast this thing,” Pepka laughed.

In his 17 years in Fountain Valley, Pepka said, he’s seen a lot of chases, but he refused to compare them.

“It’s like apples and oranges. Every one is different.”