Car Theft Suspect Critically Injured in Leap From Freeway

An alleged gang member was critically injured early Sunday when he jumped off a freeway transition road in South-Central Los Angeles in an attempt to escape police, dropping 100 feet to the ground, authorities said.

The unidentified man was one of four suspected car thieves being chased by Metropolitan Transit Authority police at 12:30 a.m. Sunday. The pursuit began when officers tried to pull over a 1982 Buick Regal for a routine traffic stop in Watts.

The driver sped onto the Century Freeway but lost control and slammed into a retaining wall on the transition road to the Harbor Freeway, MTA Police Lt. Tim Murphy said. One of the occupants then jumped from the car and vaulted over the retaining wall, “probably thinking it was just a few feet down,” Murphy said.

But the drop was more than 100 feet, and the suspect was taken to Martin Luther King Jr. / Drew Medical Center, where he was on life support, police said. Murphy said investigators recovered two handguns and a substance that resembled cocaine or methamphetamine from the car, which was missing its vehicle identification number and had been hot-wired.