Police Pursuit Ends in Crash, Killing 2 in Week’s 2nd Incident

Two suspected car thieves who led Fullerton police on a high-speed chase early Thursday died after their car struck a light pole, split in half and exploded in flames, police said.

It was the second fatal crash involving a police pursuit in Orange County this week.

The Thursday chase began about 12:30 a.m. when Fullerton Police Sgt. Dave Miller saw a man rush out of the Ralphs store in the 1100 block of North Harbor Boulevard and hop into the passenger side of a 1993 Acura Legend in the parking lot, Lt. Tony Hernandez said.

Miller, who became suspicious, ran a check on the car’s license plate and learned that it had been reported stolen early Wednesday in Brea.

When two police cars gave chase, the driver in the Acura tried to elude authorities and sped away, cutting through a neighborhood at speeds exceeding 100 mph, Hernandez said.

Minutes into the chase, the car hit a dip in the road, which sent the vehicle briefly airborne. When it landed, the driver lost control, skidded 380 feet as it careened across the road and slammed into a cement utility pole at West Malvern Avenue and Sunny Ridge Drive.

The impact sliced the car in half, Hernandez said. The back half of the car stopped at the pole where its gas tank caught fire and exploded, while the front end flew forward 200 feet, ejecting the two men.

“The crash was so spectacular that the officers initially thought the car had hit a second car,” Hernandez said. “Then they realized it was the same car but in two parts.”

The men, who were not wearing seat belts, suffered head and internal injuries. They were taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where the passenger died about 2 a.m. and the driver died about 4:30 a.m., Hernandez said.

They were identified as Quoc Kha, 23, of Anaheim and Bruce Swanson, 20, of Fullerton. Police said Swanson was the driver.

Kha, whose license had expired in August 1991, had a record of five moving violations, including reckless driving and unsafe speeding, according to DMV officials. Swanson previously had been convicted of driving without a license.

Thursday’s chase was a stark reminder of a deadly New Year’s Eve collision that killed two men and critically injured a 20-year-old Huntington Beach woman.

That pursuit began in Fountain Valley on Sunday after an alleged attempted robbery, police said. The chase ended in Huntington Beach after a Jeep driven by Ernie Magdaleno, a 33-year-old top-ranked boxer, collided with a fleeing Ford Escort, driven by John Kenneth Bandola, 19.

Both men died in the crash, police said. Dawn Kazamecki, who was riding with Bandola, was critically injured and remains at UCI Medical Center.