Four Arrested in Two High-Speed Police Pursuits

An Arizona man suspected of kidnaping a 21-year-old woman led a string of CHP cars on a 95-m.p.h. chase for more than 180 miles from Barstow on Monday, and officers were involved in a second high-speed chase that led to the arrest of three suspected bank robbers, authorities said.

In the chase that began in Barstow, Charles Frances Edwards of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., was arrested and the woman was freed unharmed, investigators said. That chase ended in the San Fernando Valley when a pickup truck driver forced the fleeing auto to stop on a freeway, authorities said.

Edwards was expected to be booked on suspicion of kidnaping and felony evading arrest, CHP Sgt. Ralph Elvira said. Barstow police said Edwards may also have been responsible for a kidnaping in January in Lake Havasu but had no further details.

Edwards denied kidnaping April Leigh Jones of Lake Havasu City, the woman who was with him Monday. No weapon was found in Edwards’ car, authorities said.

“They’re both saying that the mob is following them,” said Barstow Police Sgt. Art Hibbetts.

The twisted tale began in Barstow at 3:39 p.m. when police received a 911 call from a woman at a Best Western motel, saying, “The gangs are following us,” Hibbetts said.

The woman hung up immediately and an officer dispatched to check the area found nothing amiss.

However, five minutes later a clerk at a nearby Chevron station called police to say a woman had walked in and “she tells me she’s being held against her will,” Hibbetts said.

Barstow Officer Mike Hunter went to the station, where he spotted the maroon Ford Escort that the woman said her captor was driving. Hunter approached a man standing outside the car and the man “made a movement” he found suspicious, Hibbetts said.

Hunter drew his revolver whereupon the man jumped into his car and sped off, starting the chase. Hunter followed.

Television stations broadcast live coverage of the car’s wild ride across more than five highways, swerving through traffic, trailing patrol cars. The chase followed Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass to Interstate 10, west to the 605 Freeway, north to the 210 Freeway, turning west on the Ventura Freeway through Burbank, then heading back north through the San Fernando Valley on California 170, the northern portion of the Hollywood Freeway.

But at 5:45 p.m., as the northbound auto headed into the junction where the Hollywood Freeway merges with the Golden State Freeway in Sun Valley, the driver of a pickup truck that appeared to be carrying plumbing supplies pulled in front of the car, maneuvering insistently to force it to a halt.

CHP officers leaped from the following vehicles with guns drawn. The motorist stepped out, hands in the air, and obeyed orders to lie spread-eagled on the concrete.

In a second chase at speeds up to 100 m.p.h., police captured three suspected Long Beach bank robbers who beat two people at a La Palma bank, fled with cash and fired their guns wildly in traffic before their getaway car blew out a tire Monday.

Wearing bulletproof vests, the robbery suspects raced away from a holdup at Capital Bank and opened fire on police officers and civilian motorists as they sped down the Artesia Freeway, police said.

“This was one of the most violent bank robberies we have had in some time,” said Capt. Vincent J. Giampa of the La Palma Police Department. “These guys were prepared and ready (for violence), but they weren’t prepared enough.”

The incident began at 9:45 a.m. when three gunmen, at least two of whom were wearing stocking masks and bulletproof vests, entered the bank branch in La Palma with semiautomatic pistols drawn, police and FBI officials said.

One suspect, Alonzo G. Garrett, 26, of Long Beach, was shot in the hand during the chase, either by himself or one of the other robbers, Giampa said. Police never returned fire because of the risk of hitting other motorists, he said.

Also taken into custody were Long Beach residents Orville Joiner, 34, and Harold B. Haywood, 31. All three were booked on suspicion of armed robbery and attempted murder of a police officer. They are being held in La Palma City Jail.

At least three guns and an unspecified amount of money were recovered from the car, Giampa said.