ANAHEIM : Wrong-Way Driver Leads Police on Chase

A chase involving two people suspected of car theft ended here Monday when one of them drove a stolen auto the wrong way on the Riverside Freeway for three miles before running off the road, authorities said.

The wrong-way driver glanced off a big-rig truck as he entered the freeway at the Raymond Avenue off-ramp, then drove into the bushes just east of Brookhurst Street in Anaheim to avoid a stalled car on the shoulder.

California Highway Patrol officers said no one was injured and no other vehicles were hit during the stolen-car incident, which started in Riverside.

The suspects, whose names were not available from the CHP on Monday, were booked at Orange County Jail on suspicion of auto theft, evading arrest, hit-and-run driving and possession of burglary tools. Authorities said the suspects belong to an auto theft ring.

The chase was the fifth police pursuit in Orange County since New Year’s Day.

Riverside Police Lt. Mike Smith said Monday’s chase began about 9:45 a.m. 10 miles east of Orange County when an undercover officer from his department spotted a Chevrolet and a Pontiac driving west on the Riverside Freeway, apparently acting in tandem.

“It is not unusual for car thieves to work together, with the driver of the car that took them to the theft following the driver of the stolen car,” Smith said.

The undercover officer noticed that the rear window of the gold Chevrolet sedan had been broken. When he contacted his dispatchers, he found that its license plate actually belonged to an Oldsmobile.

He then radioed the CHP, which dispatched two motorcycle officers. The drivers, noticing the motorcycles, sped away at 100 m.p.h., Smith said.

The officers followed the cars until they exited the freeway at Lemon Street in Fullerton, heading north, Smith said. The Pontiac was pulled over without further incident at Lemon and Commonwealth Avenue, and its driver was taken into custody.

But the Chevrolet, stolen from the University of California, Riverside, earlier Monday, turned east on Wilshire Avenue, then headed south on Raymond, using the northbound lanes, CHP officers said.

After going under the Riverside Freeway, the driver went the wrong way on the eastbound off-ramp and entered the freeway. He glanced off a truck before driving three miles into oncoming traffic, keeping to the shoulder of the highway to avoid a collision.

Shortly after 10 a.m., the driver veered into the bushes as he neared Brookhurst, apparently to avoid a stalled car. A CHP motorcycle officer, also driving the wrong way on the shoulder with his emergency lights flashing, was a quarter-mile behind him.

CHP Officer Rick Pena said the suspect tried to flee on foot, but a police dog found him hiding in some bushes and he was arrested.

The most spectacular Orange County chase of the new year took place Friday afternoon when 22-year-old Darren Stroh led CHP officers on a 300-mile journey that began in central California after the unemployed Oregon electrician shot a man to death and stole his car.

That chase, televised locally from helicopters, ended when CHP officers shot Stroh after his stolen car ran out of gasoline on a San Diego Freeway off-ramp in Westminster. Stroh was armed with a shotgun.