Man Held After Truck Chase

Adding to the playbook of Los Angeles police pursuits, a man led officers on a televised chase Friday that was notable less for its outcome than for what the pursued was driving: a 15-ton 7-Up delivery truck.

The man allegedly stole the truck from West Hills Market before leading California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Police Department officers on a two-hour trek up and down freeways and on city streets in the San Fernando Valley.

The man, identified by police as John Butner, was arrested without incident after he was found hiding in a tree at a Northridge apartment complex near where he abandoned the truck. Despite numerous close calls and at least two collisions during the chase, no one was seriously injured.

“I am feeling very lucky,” said Mary Bolduan of Encino, who had just pulled out of the parking lot at a Bank of America branch at Balboa Boulevard and Parthenia Street when her Dodge Daytona plowed into the 7-Up truck.

“I didn’t see him. It happened so fast,” Bolduan said minutes after the crash. “I am shaking.”

Butner, 29, allegedly stole the truck about 9 a.m. when it was parked outside West Hills Market in the 23700 block of Roscoe Boulevard, the keys still in the ignition.

Eli Rassibi, the manager of the market, said the driver was walking in to announce a delivery when he heard the roar of the truck’s engine.

Rassibi said both men went out to investigate and saw the hulking tractor-trailer pulling away from the curb.

“We were both amazed,” Rassibi said. “It just didn’t make sense that anybody would steal a big truck like that.”

No sooner had the truck pulled into the street, Rassibi said, than it collided with a pickup truck that was westbound on Roscoe. He said the driver of the pickup was not hurt.

Los Angeles police spotted the purloined beverage truck about 10 a.m. and gave chase.

Police said Butner initially led officers up the Golden State Freeway to the northbound Antelope Valley Freeway, where he made a U-turn and headed south. From there he took the Hollywood Freeway toward downtown, again made an abrupt U-turn, and headed back to the Valley. Eventually, he exited the freeway and took to surface streets in Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood, Pacoima and finally Northridge. During tight turns, bottles of 7-Up flew from the truck’s cargo bays like missiles, their lemon-lime contents exploding onto the street.

The driver’s ability to maneuver a big-rig did not escape the notice of television anchors narrating live coverage of the chase.

“Deft handling,” one reporter commented, as if critiquing a driver on an obstacle course.

“He’s showed a lot of skill out there,” added another.

The chase ended around noon as the truck barreled past students at Napa Street Elementary School and crashed into an iron fence outside a house at the corner of Wystone Avenue.

The driver then jumped from the stolen truck and ran past startled children and parents into the sky blue Park Parthenia apartments at 19004 Bryant St., where he took up temporary residence last month with his mother-in-law, Ana Medina.

Medina was just getting home with a bagful of groceries when she opened her apartment door and saw a man running through her living room.

“I was scared,” Medina said. “At first I thought he was a robber.”

Then she recognized the man as the father of two of her grandchildren.

Butner darted into a rear bedroom where Maria Andrade, his children’s aunt, was talking on the phone.

When she noticed a wide-eyed look of fright in his eyes as police sirens blared in the distance, Andrade, 20, burst into tears. “Get out of here! We don’t want to get involved in whatever trouble you’re in,” she said she told him.

From the first-floor bedroom window, the man scrambled into a nearby tree and tried to hide amid the leaves from police officers.

At first, the police appeared to have lost him, neighbors said. But several residents in the tight-knit Latino community shouted in Spanish: “He’s in the tree! Over there!”

At first police did not understand. But they eventually spotted the suspect, who quickly gave up, falling from a tree branch as he stumbled down to the waiting officers, neighbors said.

“I know I shouldn’t laugh about this, but I can’t help it,” said Deputy Chief Michael J. Bostic, the Valley’s top officer. “We’re just glad no one was hurt.”

Though there were no serious injuries, there were some rattled nerves.

“We heard the helicopters and got a call from police and went into immediate lock-down,” said Allen Sussman, principal of Napa Street School. “Children who were outside eating lunch were brought into the auditorium and everyone remained locked inside until we received word the coast was clear.”

Fourth-grade teacher David Santa Maria said his students became frightened because many live in the nearby Park Parthenia complex and were worried about their families.

“One of my students in particular was on the verge of tears,” Santa Maria said.

Butner, who police said has previous arrests for grand theft auto and weapons violations in Kansas City, will be charged with grand theft auto, felony evading and felony hit and run, said Lt. Anthony Alba.

“These people almost without exception get caught,” Alba said. “Our guys did what they were trained to do--and that was to hang back. The last thing we want to do is force this guy into mistakes when he’s driving.”

Butner was treated for minor injuries, apparently stemming from a bottle that was thrown at the truck as he sped through a neighborhood, said a police source who asked not be be named.

Andrade, the suspect’s sister-in-law, stood outside her building staring in disbelief at the 7-Up truck and said she could not understand what had possessed Butner to pull such an outrageous stunt.

She described him as a big-hearted, hard-working man who cared for his two children.

She said he owned his own roofing business and had done several jobs for residents in the neighborhood.

“I just feel so bad. To see him like that, looking at me like that and knowing that’s going to be the last time I’ll see him. I feel so bad.”

*

Times staff writer Karima A. Haynes contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Chase Ends

After police chased a stolen 7-Up delivery truck for two hours, the driver crashed it into an iron fence in Northridge and took off on foot. Police said he ran into an apartment building and then tried to hide in a tree. But residents pointed him out to police.