Police Stop Van After Long Chase

An Orange County man with a van full of suspected illegal immigrants was arrested Thursday after leading authorities on an early morning chase from Riverside County to Anaheim, police said.

The driver of the van, identified as Orlando Pineda Cruz, 24, had been pursued by California Highway Patrol officers and Border Patrol agents after he drove through an immigration checkpoint in Temecula early Thursday.

Shortly before 2 a.m., Cruz ignored an immigration agent who had motioned for him to stop and proceeded onto Interstate 15 and kept going, Border Patrol agent Merv Maso said.

Four Border Patrol cars followed the van until CHP officers took over the chase.

From Interstate 15, Cruz took the Riverside Freeway, driving at speeds approaching 80 mph before getting off at East Street in Anaheim, CHP spokeswoman JoAnn O’Hair said.

“He made several turns before he actually stopped,” O’Hair said. CHP officers “used legal intervention to actually stop the car” by ramming the back of Cruz’s van to cause it to spin out and stop near the intersection of Chestnut and Walnut streets at 2:32 a.m., she added.

Cruz tried to evade arrest by running from the scene.He was captured in an alley two blocks away and arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest, obstructing and threatening police officers, and driving without a valid driver’s license. He was being held in the Orange County Jail in lieu of $35,000 bail.

The 15 passengers in the van were being held by the Border Patrol and will either be deported or they can ask to appear before an immigration judge, Mason said.

Mason said the same van passed through the same checkpoint two days earlier, but Border Patrol agents had been unable to stop it because of traffic conditions. The agency issued a warrant for the van.

Even when they are unable to stop vehicles, Border Patrol agents jot down the license number and vehicle’s description, Mason said.

“It is not our policy to pursue at a high rate of speed,” Mason said. “If we can’t get the CHP to assist, we just have to let them go.”