SANTA ANA : 3 Hurt in Crash After Police Chase

Two males suspected of being gang members fired several gunshots into a convenience store Thursday and led police on a wild chase through a crowded Santa Ana street before crashing into a car that had stopped at an intersection, police said.

The two suspects, whose names were not available, suffered serious injuries and were in custody at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Martha Alvado of Santa Ana, whose car was rammed by the suspects’ vehicle, was also hospitalized with serious injuries at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

After the crash a Santa Ana plainclothes detective attached to the Police Department’s gang detail--fired a single gunshot at one of the suspects missed, a police spokesman said. The bullet was recovered from a concrete wall.

The chase began shortly after 3 p.m. when two gang unit officers saw a drive-by shooting in front of a convenience store at 900 W. Pine St., Sgt. Dan Carr said. No one was hit by gunfire, and police do not know who the suspects were shooting at.

“We had two plain-clothed detectives who were . . . out patrolling gang problem areas,” Carr said.

The detectives pursued the suspects’ car, a 1977 yellow Toyota, southbound on Flower Street, Carr said. For a little more than a mile, the car weaved through heavy oncoming traffic before crashing head-on into a Dodge station wagon at Flower and St. Andrew streets.

“It was a spectacular crash,” said Maureen Haacker, a police spokeswoman. “The vehicles were twisted wrecks.”

The two suspects, who suffered serious injuries as their heads slammed into the windshield, jumped out of the car and tried to flee on foot.

“One of them swung around and had something black in his hand,” Carr said, “and the officer thought it was a handgun, and he fired one shot. The guy went down as if he got hit.”

Carr said the black object turned out to be a black handkerchief and that the suspect was not struck by the bullet.

The other person was arrested a few blocks away by a deputy U.S. marshal who was driving by and saw the bleeding man.