Stealing on Empty : Theft of 9 Cars From Lot Goes Awry as Gas Runs Out

Memo to car thieves: Always check the fuel gauges.

A gang that didn’t started running out of gas on local freeways early Thursday morning after stealing nine automobiles from a lot in the Silver Lake area, kidnaping a security guard at gunpoint and taking him on a wild, 20-mile ride, authorities said.

The guard, shaken but unhurt, said he ran for freedom after the car sputtered to a halt on the Santa Ana Freeway near Downey.

“The guy fired three shots at me as I took off, but he missed,” said the guard, David Ochoa, 29. “I’ve never run so fast in my life. I didn’t get off that freeway until the first off-ramp. It must have been three miles.”

The California Highway Patrol said the crime began to fall apart when two officers stopped to offer assistance after four of the cars pulled over to the shoulder on the Hollywood Freeway near downtown, apparently because they were low on gas and because one of them had a flat tire.

The officers said they fired several shots into one of the vehicles when the driver tried to run them down. The driver sped off, apparently uninjured, but the bullet-riddled car was found abandoned a few blocks away.

A few minutes later, police looking for some of the stolen cars were flagged down by a witness at a downtown service station. The witness told them he had seen something suspicious--men getting out of four cars and all climbing into a Dodge van that was getting a fill-up.

The officers approached the van and arrested three suspects--two juveniles and an adult. Two others apparently fled from the service station, and late Thursday seven to nine suspects remained at large.

Ochoa, using his brother, Ruben Ochoa, 23, as an interpreter, said he was working the overnight shift at The Shipping Co. lot in the 4400 block of West Santa Monica Boulevard when a Dodge van drove up and 10 to 12 men, some armed with guns, got out.

“They made me give them the key to the gate and the keys to the cars,” David Ochoa said. “Then they picked out the cars, the ones they liked the most. They took four (Mazda) Miatas, a Volkswagen GTI, an (Ford) Aerostar van, a Pontiac Fiero, a Cadillac El Dorado and a 914 Porsche.”

Ochoa said the company drains most of the fuel--”all but a gallon or so”--out of the cars before loading them into vans for shipment across the United States.

“And I didn’t tell them,” he said of the gunmen.

Ochoa said that as the thieves were about to leave, one of them forced him into the passenger seat of the Porsche. The renegade fleet then headed south on the Hollywood Freeway.

CHP Sgt. Mike Brey said two officers were on routine patrol at about 1:30 a.m. when they saw four cars on the freeway shoulder in the downtown area. He said the officers pulled over in front of the cars.

“They were walking back to the cars when two of them sped off,” Brey said. “Another car, a Mazda Miata, backs up real fast and smashes into the front of the VW. Then the driver tries to run the officers over as he takes off forward again. The officers jump out of the way and fire several shots, but the Miata keeps going. . . . The VW takes off, too.”

Police said the Miata sped up the Broadway off-ramp and glanced off a parked car as it turned south on Spring Street. Brey said the car ran out of gas at Spring and 2nd streets and the driver fled on foot.

A broadcast about the incident went out over police frequencies, and about five minutes later, at Alameda and Commercial streets, a man at a service station flagged down a Los Angeles police patrol car to report seeing four young men get out of four cars and climb into a Dodge van. Three suspects were arrested there without incident. Police said none were armed.

Meanwhile, Ochoa said, he and one of the thieves were speeding south on the Santa Ana Freeway in the Porsche.

“We were about at the 605 (Freeway, in the Downey area) when the Porsche started running out of gas,” Ochoa said. “The guy got out to see what was wrong and I took off.”

Ochoa said he outdistanced his pursuer, ducking bullets as he ran, dashed down an off-ramp to a pay phone and called his brother.

“I was OK,” he said. “But I’ve had an ulcer. I don’t think it helped that very much.”

The three suspects in custody were booked on suspicion of auto theft. One was identified as Ricardo Perez, 20, of Chula Vista. Names of the two juveniles were withheld.

Officers said five of the stolen cars were recovered--the Miata at 2nd and Spring streets and another Miata, the Cadillac, the VW and the Fiero at the service station, where police also impounded the Dodge van. Authorities were still looking for two more Miatas, the Aerostar van and the Porsche.

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.