Car Thieves Wreck 2 BMWs in Chase, Authorities Say

In a brazen early-morning robbery, thieves stole two new, top-of-the-line BMWs off an auto dealership lot Sunday, then led police on a chase on the northbound San Diego Freeway before crashing and demolishing the two $65,000 vehicles.

The cars are insured, said Tommy Thompson, sales manager for Saddleback BMW, “but the deductible is very expensive.”

Within half an hour after the dealership opened, Thompson said, he looked up to see one of the cars moving quickly through the lot.

“It was amazing,” he said. “I was about to go out and jump the porter for driving too fast, you know, thinking he was goofing around.”

But Thompson said he quickly realized that the cars were being stolen, as the two shiny Series 7 BMWs sped off the lot and headed toward the freeway.

“It happened so fast that we didn’t see anybody around,” Thompson said. He said the suspects may have been hiding at the dealership when it opened at 10 a.m.

Within minutes of the reported theft, Irvine police spotted the vehicles on the San Diego Freeway near the Costa Mesa Freeway and tried to pull them over. The drivers, a man and a woman, ignored police, and the chase began near the Harbor Boulevard exit. Police briefly closed the northbound lanes of the freeway during the pursuit.

Several miles north, the driver of one car lost control, crashed into the center divider near the Westminster Mall, jumped out and ran into the bushes along the freeway. Officers chased the suspect, identified as Mieesha Latrice Dailey, 21, of Los Angeles, and arrested her after what was described as a short foot pursuit.

Dailey was charged with auto theft and evading arrest.

The second driver left the freeway near the mall and led police a few blocks through residential streets before crashing the BMW into “a fire hydrant, a tree and three police cars” from Irvine, Westminster and Fountain Valley, police said.

The suspect was identified as Arthur Leo Reeder, 40, of Los Angeles. He was charged with auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer--apparently as a result of colliding with a police car--and evading arrest.

Reeder and Dailey were being held at the Orange County Jail.

Neither the suspects nor police were injured and damage to the police cars was minor. But damage to the BMWs was extensive, police said.

Thompson said there was no indication that lockboxes on the vehicles had been tampered with, and the car windows had not been broken. “We don’t know how they got them open,” he said.