Police chased a suspected armed man driving erratically through South Los Angeles and at slow speeds on several Southern California freeways before coming to a stop about 40 miles east of Los Angeles six hours later.
The Los Angles Police Department began the pursuit at around 7:00 p.m. PST after receiving a report of a man with a gun, NBC Los Angeles reports. Six hours later, police stopped the driver in Ontario, where they said no weapon was found.
The department said it is not immediately clear whether he ever had a weapon or disposed of it by throwing it out the window while attempting to evade police.
The driver was charged with suspicion of felony evading and has two outstanding warrants for burglary, police told NBC Los Angeles.
LAPD Sgt. Juan Garcia, who had just started his shift as the chase began, was involved in the pursuit and said the department did not try a PIT maneuver to spin the car and end the chase because it was believed that the suspect was armed at the time.
“Our policy generally prohibits us from conducting a PIT maneuver on somebody we believe is armed because it puts us at a disadvantage when we flip that car around,” Garcia told NBC Los Angeles. “Now he’s face-to-face with us, and it is pretty unsafe.”
Garcia said he has never heard of a pursuit lasting as long as the 6-hour one on Tuesday (February 2) in his 20 years with the LAPD, adding that many officers needed to pull off to gas up their police vehicles using their own money, while the suspect vehicle, a Chevrolet Malibu, apparently had a full tank of gas.
“That’s a first of my career for such a lengthy pursuit,” Garcia told NBC Los Angeles.
The pursuit ended in Ontario after the Malibu shed a tire and wheel. Newschopper4 captured live video footage of the chase at around 7:10 p.m. PST as the Malibu traveled through a residential neighborhood at high speeds, which included driving on the wrong side of the street several times.
The vehicle was seen speeding on La Cienega Boulevard northbound and Saluson Avenue, which included driving on the wrong side of the street to avoid traffic and running through red lights numerous times.
After driving through Crenshaw Boulevard and Hyde Park, the vehicle entered the 110 Freeway southbound and merged onto it at a slow speed while swerving across lanes. The suspect appeared to be on his cell phone while entering the freeway.
The pursuit continued on the 110 Freeway southbound past the 105 Freeway at around 7:53 p.m., which saw it come to crawl on the 110 Freeway southbound in Wilmington as the driver appeared to change close.
The driver would later make a u-turn and return northbound on the 110 Freeway. The vehicle's speed then dropped to about 30-40 MPH, even as low as single-digit speeds multiple times, on the freeway before the pursuit entered downtown Los Angeles at around 9:05 p.m., nearly two hours after it began.
The suspect continued to drive at slow speeds as the vehicle entering the 101 Freeway with several police vehicles trailing it and eventually moved onto the 10 Freeway eastbound.
At around the three-hour mark, the car's front tires appeared to experience significant damages and the vehicle continued to move at slow speeds. The vehicle arrived in Baldwin Park shortly after 11:00 p.m. with its front left tire completely riding on metal rims and the pursuit extended two more hours despite the damages.
Photo: Getty Images