Stolen Truck Leads Police on Low-Speed, 12-Mile Chase

Police pursued a stolen semitrailer truck loaded with 24 tons of plywood through congested San Fernando Valley streets Wednesday after an employee of the company that owns the truck sighted it on the freeway and called the California Highway Patrol on his car phone, authorities said.

The pursuit wound its way over 12 miles of surface streets in North Hollywood, Van Nuys and Studio City before the driver jumped out on Coldwater Canyon Avenue about 3:25 p.m. and hid in thick brush north of Mulholland Drive, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Joe Brazas. About 10 minutes later, a Los Angeles police helicopter saw him in a ravine, where he was arrested, Brazas said.

William Epperly, 34, of Whittier was being held on suspicion of grand theft at the Police Department’s Van Nuys station jail, Brazas said.

Three Los Angeles police patrol cars and a Highway Patrol car pursued the truck for about 35 minutes, at speeds that never reached more than 35 m.p.h., Brazas said. The truck did not hit other vehicles, despite running several red lights at major intersections, and there were no injuries, Brazas said.

Police followed the truck, lights flashing and sirens wailing, but did not try to force it to halt. Under department policy, officers do not try to block a fleeing vehicle’s path or run it off the road “unless there’s an immediate, clear and present threat to someone’s life,” Sgt. John Rygh said.

“Especially if he’s driving a heavy rig loaded with thousands of pounds of merchandise,” Rygh said.

Police were guided to the truck by Robert H. Sharpless, a salesman for Panel-Tex, a City of Industry firm that manufactures and sells plywood paneling. Sharpless said thieves broke into the company’s yard Tuesday night and loaded the $18,000 worth of plywood onto the truck with a forklift that they had hot-wired.

“I had just gotten onto the I-5 northbound from the Harbor and looked over to the right, and there’s our company truck with a load of plywood on it,” Sharpless said.

“It blew me away. I couldn’t believe it.

“I called my boss on the car phone and asked him if he hired a driver with a beard today and shipped any more plywood out today, and he said, ‘Hell, no!’ and said ‘Get off the phone right now and call 911.’ ”

Sharpless said he followed the truck as it continued north on the Golden State, Ventura and Hollywood freeways before getting off at Sherman Way. He said he stayed on the phone with a Highway Patrol dispatcher, giving the location of the truck and arranging to alert waiting patrol cars by turning on his emergency flashers when he passed them.

“I turned on my emergency flashers when I saw the CHP on Sherman Way, the officer pulled up beside me and I pointed out to him that was the truck,” Sharpless said.

Sharpless said he lost sight of the truck when he had to stop for a red light at Woodman Avenue, but the Highway Patrol continued the pursuit and was joined by Los Angeles police cars.

The abandoned truck blocked both lanes of Coldwater Canyon for more than half an hour before it could be moved out of traffic. It backed up southbound traffic to Ventura Boulevard and brought northbound traffic to a halt at Mulholland Drive, Brazas said.