Youths’ Wrong-Way Freeway Flight Leads to Juvenile Hall

Two El Monte youths who sped along the San Diego Freeway in the wrong direction for 25 miles were booked Wednesday on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and auto theft.

Two other juveniles, arrested Tuesday in Fountain Valley after abandoning a stolen van, were also booked into Orange County Juvenile Hall on charges of auto theft. Police are calling the second pair of juveniles accomplices of the wrong-way El Monte youths.

Fountain Valley Detective Mike Becker, who is investigating the case, described the four males as a “teen-age auto theft ring.”

“They were very busy,” he said.

Becker said the youths--three of them age 17 and the other 16--began their crime spree by stealing a 1986 Toyota van in the City of Industry and driving south to Huntington Beach, where they broke into a 1982 Toyota pickup.

When they noticed that the van was running low on gas, the youths drove to Fountain Valley and stole a second Toyota van, a 1985, parked outside a downtown store, Becker said. The owner of the second van called police and said he had just watched his van drive away without him.

The foursome--now in three stolen Toyotas--abandoned the first van near the border of Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach.

At about this time, Becker, in an unmarked patrol car at the Euclid Avenue on-ramp to Interstate 405, said he spotted the 1985 van reported stolen minutes earlier and also the 1985 pickup. “They were driving very close together,” he said. “It looked like tag team.”

The van then pulled away into a residential area and the pickup went on the freeway, beginning the 25-mile chase north to Torrance in the freeway’s southbound lanes. The pickup was stopped by a blockade of California Highway Patrol cars after trying to ram police cars along the way, Becker said. The alleged ramming attempts led to the charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

“These people were desperate to get away,” Becker said. “They had one thing in mind: not to get caught. The pursuit was unbelievable.”

Two of the youths confessed to prior car thefts, Becker said. “They told me they steal cars for money,” the officer said.