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Theft Suspect Takes a Ride on Wild Side : Crime: Handcuffed, he leads police on a seven-mile chase in patrol car. He later is captured hiding under a pile of clothes.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

From two wheels to no wheels to four.

Juan Rodriguez stole them all Wednesday morning, police said, working his way up from a bike to one of their patrol cars.

First, the 31-year-old Pacoima man swiped a 10-speed bicycle parked outside a house in Sepulveda, officers said. Then, they said, he pinched a gasoline-powered weed cutter from a gardener’s truck three blocks away. Finally, as he sat handcuffed in a patrol car while officers interviewed the bike’s owner, he stole the car too, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. David Johnson.

Thus began a seven-mile Pied Piper chase through the East San Fernando Valley that collected civilians, 20 officers and a helicopter, ending when the police car crashed and Rodriguez was found hiding under a pile of clothes on a bed. His feet stuck out and gave him away.

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Two officers were on patrol in Sepulveda about 8:40 a.m. when they noticed Rodriguez onbicycle. Several minutes later, they saw him again. This time, he had a weed cutter.

As officers questioned him, a gardener came up and said it was his weed cutter, stolen from his truck, the sergeant said. As police were arresting Rodriguez on that matter, another man walked up and said that was his bike, stolen from his house.

Handcuffing Rodriguez in the back seat of their patrol car, which had no barrier between the front and back seats, they drove to the bike owner’s house. The motor was left running while one officer walked to the front door.

The other officer, a newcomer to the force, stayed by the car. But when the recruit stepped away to ask his partner how long the questioning would take, Johnson said, Rodriguez clambered over into the front seat and drove off.

When the police asked him how he did it, “he claims he was driving with his hands behind his back,” twisting his body sideways, Johnson said. “Maybe so.”

By now, two drivers who had seen the squad car stolen followed it on the San Diego Freeway, and then onto the Simi Valley Freeway before Rodriguez drove off in Pacoima, where he crashed into a parked Toyota, jumped out and ran, Johnson said.

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One driver ran after Rodriguez, while the other called police over the radio of the crashed squad car.

At Van Nuys Boulevard, two pedestrians joined the chase, and the three of them tackled Rodriguez, who wriggled away, Johnson said.

Reinforcements arrived: Roughly 20 officers and a police helicopter. Construction workers perched atop a nearby building directed police to where they had seen a handcuffed man slip into an apartment building.

There, police found Rodriguez hiding under a pile of clothes on a bed, Johnson said.

“He forgot to cover up his feet,” the sergeant said. “His feet were sticking out.”

Rodriguez was jailed on suspicion of grand theft auto. The police car suffered minor damage to its front left side. The Toyota was totaled. And the officers were “kind of embarrassed,” Johnson said.

Of the recruit who stepped away from the car he was supposed to guard, Johnson said: “It’s probably safe to say that nobody will escape from him again.”

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