Car pursued by police crashes into truck in North Hollywood; 3 hospitalized

A driver being followed by police crashed into a truck Tuesday afternoon, sending three people to the hospital.

According to preliminary reports from Los Angeles Police Department, police began following the car because officers suspected it was stolen.

About 12:45 p.m., the car T-boned a truck passing through an intersection in a neighborhood near Tujunga Avenue and Erwin Street, according to surveillance video acquired by KCBS-TV Channel 2. The crash took out a streetlight and sent the truck rolling into a nearby yard and the car upside-down on a sidewalk.

Officer Mike Lopez, an LAPD public information officer, said he did not know the make or model of either vehicle or whether the car was actually stolen.

Two people in the car were trapped after it flipped. They were taken to a hospital in critical condition after being removed from the vehicle by the Los Angeles Fire Department, Lopez said. A third passenger was arrested when he tried to flee the scene, police said.

The driver of the truck was taken to a hospital in stable condition, Lopez said.

Lopez said he did not have information on how long police had been following the car or how fast the officers or car were traveling when the crash occurred.