Device Puts Police on Track of Stolen Car, Suspect

Police chasing a stolen car at more than 100 m.p.h. lost track of it for a while Wednesday, but quickly relocated it because the vehicle was equipped with a cellular phone-based tracking device.

The car was recovered and the alleged thief arrested, Los Angeles police reported.

The incident began after midnight at the Canoga Park Bowling Alley, when Travis Horsefall, 21, began bothering two teen-agers out for a night of bowling, Detective Robert Johansen said. Johansen said Horsefall was “talking trash” to the bowlers for hours.

At about 4:45 a.m., the youths slipped out the side door in an effort to elude Horsefall, but he saw them leave and ran outside, where he sat on the hood of one boy’s parked car, Johansen said.

Johansen said the boys went to a nearby pay phone, but the man followed them and demanded one youth’s wallet and the car keys. When he refused, Horsefall punched him in the face, grabbed his keys and wallet, hopped in the car and sped off, Johansen said.

But the car was equipped with a Teletrak system, a concealed transmitter that enables observers at a central station to track its movements, using the cellular phone network, and report them to police. Police cruisers were soon in hot pursuit, guided by the Teletrak controllers, Johansen said.

When the stolen car started to run red lights at speeds over 100 m.p.h., police suspended the chase, Johansen said. But the Teletrak system continued to track it, leading officers to the car, abandoned a few blocks from where the chase ended, Johansen said.

The trackers “knew the street, the hundred block, the whole thing,” Johansen said.

A resident of the area told officers the car was left there by Horsefall, whom he described as a transient well known in that neighborhood, Johansen said. The resident told officers where to find Horsefall, and he was arrested nearby, Johansen said.