Police Pursuit Ends in Crash That Kills 2 : Chase: A pair of young men in path of fleeing carjacking suspect die in collision. Ontario officers are grief-stricken, but say course of action was justified.

The police never figured it would end this way, with funeral arrangements for two young men who probably never knew what hit them.

The Ontario police were in hot pursuit of a brazen carjacker, roaring down a wide avenue in Upland at 2:30 Mondaymorning, red lights and siren blaring, thinking they were going to catch the guy.

Moments earlier, Andy Schneider, 21, Kevin Jones, 20, and Victor Robbins, 25, had left Jones’ apartment to pick up a friend. They often talked about computers, music and church. Schneider and Jones had met as counselors for the Happening, an Episcopal Church youth movement.

With the green light, they crossed Euclid Avenue and drove right into the path of the police pursuit. Their Toyota Tercel was no match for the speeding Buick Regal when it was broadsided.

The wreckage was so awful, police were not sure who was driving the Toyota. Schneider, a Riverside resident recently trained in computer-assisted drafting, and Jones, a Rancho Cucamonga resident and off-and-on college student, were killed. Robbins of Chino was rushed to a hospital in serious condition.

The suspect, Daniel Salvador Sandigo, took off on foot, still trying to shake the police who finally captured him. Sandigo, 24, of Upland, faces two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and carjacking. He is being held without bail in San Bernardino County Jail.

On Tuesday, Skip Harness, Schneider’s stepfather, was trying to give police the benefit of the doubt. But, emotionally raw after the crash, he just couldn’t.

“The bottom line is, I’m just as mad at the Police Department as I am at the carjacker. I know I shouldn’t be that way,” he said, “but there’s no reason they should value a car as much as they value life.”

Ontario police were unapologetic Tuesday about giving chase, but wracked by its consequences.

“The carjacking suspect is to be considered a violent felon,” said Detective Mike Macias. “He’s a class of person who doesn’t care about anybody else in the world. If we don’t chase this guy and catch him, who does he rob next, and to what extreme will he go next time? Does he shoot or stab the next person?

“Police officers are entrusted with the most difficult position, of weighing in balance the safety of the community. These are extremely difficult decisions for officers to make.”

At the outset, giving chase to a carjacking suspect seemed the right thing to do. The street was three lanes wide in each direction; traffic was light and visibility was good. No one seemed in harm’s way. And the crime was violent from the get-go, Macias said.

Sandigo jumped a man who was sitting in his idling car in the drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant in Ontario, Macias said. He pushed the owner of the Regal out of the car and--as another suspect held the motorist down on the ground--got in and sped off. The other suspect, who remains at large, fled in a different vehicle and the dazed motorist called police.

When Sandigo saw an Ontario patrol car, he spun a U-turn and took off, and police gave chase at a “high rate of speed,” Macias said. Within two minutes, it was over.

“I know (giving pursuit) is a calculated risk,” Harness said. “But on Monday, these boys were that percentage of the risk the police didn’t anticipate.”