2 Hurt as Police Car in Chase Hits Vehicle

While chasing a stolen car through West Los Angeles, police officers crashed into another vehicle in Santa Monica, injuring the driver and passenger, authorities said Sunday.

The chase began shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday in a parking lot at the Beverly Center mall, when members of the LAPD’s anti-gang unit spotted a car that a computer check determined was stolen, Sgt. Dave Rossi said.

When the officers tried to pull the car over, the driver sped away, and the officers chased the car through West Los Angeles, Westwood and into Santa Monica, Rossi said.

At 14th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard, the police car rammed into the passenger side of a car driven by Scott Cooper, 36, of Santa Monica. Rossi said he did not know how fast the police car was going, but said “it was a real nasty, nasty accident.”

Cooper’s mother, Cele Cooper of Sherman Oaks, said her son sustained minor injuries, but that his girlfriend, Lauren Handelman, underwent several hours of surgery Saturday night and remained in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center on Sunday.

Doctors told Handelman’s parents in Chicago that they “will know in the next three days what kind of damage there is, because the brain is still very swollen,” Cooper’s mother said.

A nursing supervisor at the UCLA Medical Center said Sunday that Handelman’s family had asked that no information be released about their daughter’s condition. The supervisor would only confirm that Handelman was at the hospital.

Cooper’s mother said the accident shows why high-speed chases should not be allowed on city streets.

“It was a totally unnecessary kind of event,” she said. “Something should be done about it.”

She said that Handelman is a Stanford premed student who was visiting Los Angeles for the weekend.

After the accident, a Santa Monica police car picked up the pursuit of the stolen car, Rossi said. When the Santa Monica officers were caught in traffic, a second Los Angeles police car continued the chase on the southbound San Diego Freeway.

The stolen car left the freeway at Slauson Avenue, Rossi said, and the suspects fled on foot. They were caught nearby and arrested on suspicion of grand theft auto. The driver, an 18-year-old man, and his passenger, a girl, 17, are both from Los Angeles, police said. The suspects were were not identified.