Fear of Prison Return Cited in 150-Mile Chase : Crime: Police say Arleta resident feared his probation would be revoked, prompting the televised, 2 1/2-hour pursuit.

When a Burbank park ranger tried to stop Fernando Jaime Ramos for driving the wrong direction on a one-way street, Ramos feared the ranger would write a citation and discover he was smoking marijuana, so his parole would be revoked and he’d be shipped back to prison for life, police said Tuesday.

That’s why the 25-year-old Arleta resident tried to run down the ranger and sped off, police said--beginning the epic 2 1/2-hour, 150-mile police pursuit across Los Angeles that dominated much of the area’s television viewing Monday night as Ramos doggedly refused to surrender.

Actually, there was no point in running away, Park Ranger Brandon Ward said Tuesday.

He never intended to give Ramos a ticket.

“I was just going to advise him” he was driving the wrong way, Ward told reporters. “A lot of people make that mistake.”

But now Ramos is being held without bail on suspicion of felonies committed during the chase--assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon--that do indeed raise the possibility of his returning to prison for a long time.

According to police, Ramos gravely compounded his error by not only trying to run down the ranger but trying to drive his truck into pursuing police officers four times as well as trying to hit residents who came out to watch as the chase, carried live by several television stations, passed through their neighborhoods.

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Ramos’ family said he feared he would spend 25 years in prison if he was caught violating his parole, apparently a mistake on his part.

“Based on what I know, he wasn’t looking at any 25-to-life sentence for anything other than what he did” after he fled, Burbank Police Lt. Larry Koch said.

What he did, police say, was lead a retinue of police cars on a chase that looped through most of the Los Angeles area, barreling along surface streets from North Hollywood to Beverly Hills, Santa Monica to Long Beach, Venice to Vernon, where officers finally stopped Ramos by ramming his truck, causing it to fishtail into an industrial building.

Ramos’ mother, Leticia Ramos, and other relatives said Ramos refused to surrender--though he was clearly incapable of escaping in the slow and damaged truck--because he had been paroled from prison four months ago and was told he would be imprisoned for life if arrested again.

Burbank Police Sgt. William Berry, who supervised the pursuit, said one of the prior arrests on Ramos’ long rap sheet is for evading police officers.

“Some people can’t break their bad habits,” Berry said.

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Ramos’ relatives said he was hired about 1 1/2 months ago by a local paper company, where he at first packed crates, and then was allowed to drive trucks.

Police said Ramos had not taken his truck back to the plant from a run Monday night. Burbank Police Capt. Bob Heins said Ramos told investigators he had smoked a joint of marijuana near Vickroy Park, where he was spotted by the park ranger.

Ramos tried to back over Ward, Berry said. Ramos then turned into a dead-end street, wheeled his truck around, and bore down on Ward, who had parked his cruiser across the intersection to try and contain Ramos, Berry said. Ward sped out of the way, evading the truck by about six inches, Berry said.

Fleeing down Laurel Canyon Boulevard, police said Ramos tried to shake the patrol cars by driving between two apartment buildings. It was such a tight squeeze that he tore the top and part of one side off his truck on the overhang and wall of one building before managing to gun the truck through the alleyway. While Ramos was trapped between the buildings, Officer Russ Williamson sprayed Ramos with pepper spray to no effect and slashed his two rear tires, Berry said.

“He looked really scared, like he wasn’t going to stop for anybody and didn’t care,” Officer Jeff Gonner said. “That kind of worried me.”

Undeterred, Ramos rolled out of the Valley and through the city. In Venice he drove through a patchwork of alleys and then barreled along the boardwalk at speeds near 40 m.p.h., Berry said. Elsewhere he drove about 60 m.p.h.

Burbank police cars were joined by well over a half-dozen other law enforcement agencies, including the LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The slashed tire peeled off and the truck, which had two tires on each side in the rear, continued on one tire and a rim on the right rear side, the steel rim striking showers of sparks from the pavement.

As Ramos drove through neighborhoods, residents watching the chase on television sometimes ran out to throw garbage cans and beer bottles at him, Berry said. Ramos swerved his truck at them, Berry said.

Driving through Wilmington, Ramos ran over a small dog--a mistake that fired up pursuing officers to stop him.

“That really ticked me off,” Berry said.

Convinced that Ramos would not hesitate to hurt people, Berry told the pursuing Burbank officers to shoot out Ramos’ left rear tires. They did, but the truck kept going for 15 more miles into an empty stretch of Vernon.

“I waited until we had a completely empty area,” Berry said, “and we took him out.”

Berry ordered a cruiser to ram the rear of the truck, which sent it fishtailing out of control into a building. Ramos, who was surrounded by officers with drawn guns and dragged from the truck’s cab as a crowd watched, suffered minor cuts, Berry said.

Williamson, the first police officer to join the chase, made the arrest. The thing about such chases, he commented, is that “you think it usually will end fairly quickly.”

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Path of Chase 1. Burbank 2. North Hollywood 3. Studio City 4. Laurel Canyon 5. Hollywood 6. Beverly Hills 7. Westwood 8. Santa Monica 9. Venice 10. Marina del Rey 11. Mar Vista 12. Culver City 13. West LA 14. Los Angeles 15. Compton 16. Long Beach 17. Carson 18. Vernon