Car chase: Suspect drives backward, atop medians, blows red lights in Crescenta Valley
A roughly hour-long car chase that winded through the Crescenta Valley foothills during rush hour Thursday ended after the fleeing driver surrendered to deputies.
The chase ended in a Tujunga neighborhood at about 8:45 a.m. when officers used the so-called “pit maneuver” to bump the robbery suspect’s bumper and spin his car around. The move worked, until the suspect threw his car in reverse and drove backward down the street with squad cars pursuing in front, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The suspect eventually exited his car with his hands above his head after his car was pinned in.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies had pursued the man in a white compact car for about an hour as he blew through intersections, school zones and narrow neighborhood streets.
At times, the cops backed off as the suspect’s driving became more erratic, including going up on landscaped medians to circumvent stopped traffic.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Irys Alvarez said during the pursuit that it wasn’t known whether the driver was armed, but confirmed that he was wanted for robbery. Details were not immediately available.
“We don’t know when it happened. We don’t know much,” Alvarez said.
Aerial television news footage showed the man wave out his window at times. At one point, he appeared to throw an object out the window. KTLA-TV reported that the object may have been a saw.
-- Jason Wells and Ari Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times
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