Police Descend Into Slime to Catch Prey After Wild Chase

A persistent 25-year-old driver of a Ford Ranger led police on a wild, 15-minute chase through Granada Hills and Van Nuys, but his flight came to an inglorious and filthy finish Wednesday.

Robert Bergerson of Canyon Country was arrested after he tried to flee on foot from his Ranger, which became stuck--along with two police cars chasing him--on a muddy road.

Lt. Harvie Eubanks said the chase began shortly before noon when two Los Angeles police officers saw the vehicle traveling about 80 m.p.h. through Granada Hills on the eastbound Simi Valley Freeway. After watching the Ranger, which had no license plates, swerve aggressively to pass slower cars, the officers “decided he was a hazard,” Eubanks said.

The Ranger turned onto the southbound San Diego Freeway, then drove west on Roscoe Boulevard before heading south on Woodley Avenue, Eubanks said. Along the way, he said, its driver pulled in and out of three parking lots as he tried to elude Officers Paul Sciarrillo and Richard Rashi.

Eubanks said the driver repeatedly ignored orders to stop and finally drove onto a dirt road bordering the Los Angeles River in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area, followed by Sciarrillo, Rashi and two more patrol cars. He soon discovered that the recent rain had turned the dirt road into muck.

When the Ranger became so deeply mired that it could go no farther, Bergerson jumped out and tried to flee on foot, but was arrested, Eubanks said.

The two mud-splattered patrol cars that also were stuck had to be towed out, police said.

Bergerson was arrested on suspicion of evading an officer, a misdemeanor, but later that afternoon posted $150 bail and was released from the Van Nuys Jail.