North County

San Diego police and sheriff’s deputies took part in a wild, high-speed chase early Wednesday that was witnessed by a member of the city’s new Civilian Advisory Board on Police Practices, authorities said.

When it was over 40 minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy had fired a shot at the suspect, and a sheriff’s car had been rammed by a police car, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

The 1 a.m. chase--which stretched from La Jolla to Encinitas--began when Police Officer Sam Campbell and his ride-along, civilian review advisory panel member Howard Carey, were passed on Interstate 8 at Genesee Avenue by a speeding pickup truck, San Diego Police Sgt. Anne O’Dell said.

The officer tried to stop the truck, but the driver ran a stop sign and jumped a divider on Genesee, according to O’Dell. She said police lost the vehicle until a sheriff’s deputy saw it at 1:50 a.m. on Del Dios Highway at Via Cuarto Caminos, where the driver crashed into a sign.

When the deputy got out of his car and approached the truck, the driver allegedly stepped on the gas and attempted to run him down, the sheriff’s spokesman said. The deputy fired one shot at the truck, which missed, then got out of the way.

A minute later, the driver was finally captured when he struck a fence and got stuck in mud at 6800 El Camino del Norte, authorities said.

During the early part of the chase, a deputy’s car was rammed by a police car. The crash in the 15600 block of El Camino Real occurred when the police car leading the chase was unable to avoid a sheriff’s vehicle that had stopped in an attempt to head off the truck, O’Dell said. There were no injuries.

Howard Brittan Ochs, 27, of Vista, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, drunk driving, hit-and-run driving and evading a peace officer, O’Dell said. She added that Ochs had outstanding warrants for speeding and failure to yield to an emergency vehicle.

Ochs was booked into County Jail, and bail was set at $6,485, a jail spokeswoman said.