Officers Run Into a Pack of Trouble : Crime: Police joggers commandeer an actor’s golf cart and two cyclists’ bicycles to capture an attempted rape suspect in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

A routine jog for three Los Angeles police officers turned into a 1 1/4-mile-long foot, bicycle and golf cart chase that ended--thanks to a little help from actor Scott Baio--with the capture of an attempted rape suspect, police said Saturday.

Metropolitan Division officers Alan Sorkness, Charles Heim and Gary Morgan were out for a training run in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area about 4:30 p.m. Friday when a 25-year-old woman crawled from thick brush on the side of the jogging path “screaming for help,” said Sgt. Joseph Brazas. The woman told police that she had been jogging when a man dragged her from the path and tried to rape her. As the officers spoke to the woman, she spotted the suspect 200 feet away and the chase began, Brazas said.

The suspect took the officers on a chase through Balboa Golf Course, where they ran into Baio. After determining that the shorts and T-shirt clad runners were police in pursuit of a suspect, he loaned them his golf cart.

The officers chased the suspect in the cart until it could go no further on the uneven terrain. They resumed the chase on foot. Then one of the officers commandeered a bicycle from a disbelieving passer-by.

Eventually, the bike also was abandoned due to rough terrain. The suspect was finally caught in an open field in the undeveloped recreation area, Brazas said.

With no radios or handcuffs, the officers had the suspect but no way of taking him in to the station. So two officers stayed with the suspect while one began the long trek back to find a phone to call for help.

While the officer was jogging back he spotted another bicyclist and commandeered that bike also, Brazas said.

Meanwhile, back in the park the first cyclist flagged down a patrol car and complained that he had been mugged by three men who took his bike. But Baio and the victim came by to explain that the joggers really were police officers. And then the pursuing officer rode up on the second bicycle.

“All the bikes were returned to their respective owners and the golf cart was returned and was seen putting away into the sunset,” Brazas said. The 16-year-old suspect was taken to Sylmar Juvenile Hall on suspicion of attempted rape.