FULL CHASE: LAPD tracking driver in stolen box truck along PCH in Malibu

residential and it's doing, you know, 40 or 50 miles an hour, so could you deploy a spike strip if you can get ahead of this? vehicle yes you can, I think the most prudent thing is to be with the weather also a little rain in that area is to go back enter surveillance mode have areas flood the area where you are basically going to have the terminal of this

chase

and then take it into custody through a coordinated response. When we were talking to Scott R earlier, he mentioned that many of these

truck

s have trackers. Can you talk a little bit about that and if it has a tracker, does it make sense?

Just to let them continue and catch up later, it is possible. Yes, many of these types of vehicles have low Jack or teletrack type problems, so your office hires them when they finish their job.route or do their route um that's one way to do it another way is to know that you have the helicopter and It's a little difficult to outrun the helicopter unless the weather prevents them from doing so, even if you were to park the vehicle and then walk bail, they are going to stop this person and they are going to follow this vehicle well while we watch the live shot in the background. left, the person stopped towards oncoming traffic, so it's not like this guy started suddenly.

Driving safely there is still some impatience and aggressiveness that is seen right there passing a

truck

in the turn lane towards what could be oncoming traffic and now approaching another intersection in that turn lane let's see if it is person is going to go straight they did it again using the turn why now why and oncoming traffic is not necessary again this is a big danger for people who have no idea what is happening and suddenly they're looking at the grill of a truck yeah this guy has definitely shown desire and disregard for public safety and you know we're talking about speeds in these circumstances it's not horrible but it's still about 50 miles per hour in areas that are probably 35 and you I'm driving one of these big trucks and I certainly don't stop there at the red light.

I just keep going. I'm not sure if this takes this person back in the direction of the freeway, maybe he wants to get back on the freeway. highway after you exit the highway because it runs parallel to the highway, so if you think about it, javana, you go off the highway because of what was happening with the other truck, but that's where you wanted to be. the first place, so maybe you go through the neighborhoods and now you're back on the highway. I'm not sure, but it seems like maybe that's the direction they're going. Yes, we saw the highway in The Wider image. the helicopter just now and I think it's right on the other side of this intersection so we'll see if it's heading south, if it's the same highway, oh no, I guess there's no on-ramp there, so he turned left. left. in front of all those vehicles at that intersection, so he probably saw the freeway, but like you mentioned, I didn't know there's no on-ramp right there, unless maybe the right turn takes you, so yeah, but again, even that simple.

The movement was dangerous because he was in a straight lane and turned left in front of the vehicles and now we are looking at the 101 again, not sure if it is south or north. We're trying to figure it out, I guess. He's probably heading back south just because that was the direction the person was going in the first place, which would mean he could head back to uh, Mr. Ty again, um, so Bruce, what did you think? No, it's north, my apologies, that's what it says. 101 Heading North Heading North, so Bruce brings you back to this, um, this is baffling, like how do you handle this?

Yeah, you know, going back to what Philip said, this is a good-sized truck, it's got some weight to it, it can be

full

y loaded with cargo and appliances or whatever, that creates another problem for the officers chasing it, but in In this case you simply have to follow the vehicle. I think if you get on it and this person knows they're being

chase

d, obviously, you can create a dangerous situation. situation more than what we've seen, well, I just continue, we just continue to show the video on the right of the interaction between these two trucks when the Lowe's vehicle, which is the suspect vehicle, sideswiped, uh, a person was probably in his path. business and his daily work and then that person reacted over the course of about two or three minutes to some very dangerous activity between the two of them, still trying to get the Lowe's person to stop, but because the Lowe's person is being chased . by the police, he was prepared to ram the Mr Tire truck from behind, he was prepared to side-swipe them and continue.

It was a really dangerous scenario for the Mr Ty truck and I don't even think he realized how dangerous it was because this vehicle is

stolen

and has been trying to escape from the police for the better part of an hour and a half, now it probably won't. realize what was happening when he was hit by that truck and it's understandable, I mean, it's understandable that that's the way it is. Upset and so angry, you would think that because Bruce, I mean, this was an unprovoked act on that person's part and he just wanted him to stop and do the right thing, so he's driving a company vehicle, it might even be business. yours, it might even be your business. but Bruce, I mean, it's hard, I mean, in hindsight, yeah, I'm sure you might think that's okay, yeah, I should have done it differently, but at the time, uh, I, I don't think the actions of the person were so unjustified, except when it became more dangerous. to the people around, yes, and it doesn't look like he has a license plate, they no longer remember that a lot of things were happening, yes, that's true, but Bruce, what do you know when you talk about unjustified actions, yes?

I mean, obviously you're upset, you're frustrated, you're like, Hey, this guy just hit me. I'm not going to let them get away with it, although you don't know the other side of the circumstances of this incident, but I know we tell people not to get involved, discretion is the better part of courage, stay aside off the road, dial 911. You know just don't get involved. What are the charges someone could face in that circumstance? Maybe we can help our viewers with that too if he finds himself in something similar to this because this could happen again in the next five minutes.

What happens to a person who acts that way? Usually it is a slap on the wrist or a fine. or say "hey, don't do that again", you know, it rises, you have a misdemeanor hit and run, which means you have now been involved in an accident and have not stopped or exchanged information with the other

driver

, so that's one charge, the second charge. Obviously, the chase charge is the other charge as well if that person in that Mr. Tire truck was hurt or hurt. Well, I was talking about the charges that Mr. Ty could face, not about this suspect facing a litany of charges, but about someone who had that happen to them.

To them, I would think those actions are reasonable, but you mention that you tell people not to do that. Yeah, I mean, are they reasonable? Yes and no. Are you frustrated? If you're angry? Yes, how dare you hit me and then walk away? I don't think anyone is looking to charge him with anything, obviously he would get a very stern warning from the CHP or Ventur County, so yeah, I mean, I understand him following through. I don't think I would get in front of him and try to stop that big truck, yeah that might not have been the smartest thing to do and it's certainly not anything we recommend but you know we keep talking about this over and over again this guy just keeps going , there is simply nothing stopping him and it seems that way.

Rainier is getting good going north, yes north, and I'm not sure how our signal will be affected the further north we go, but again we have been following this since about 11:30 on ABC7 and now we are . on our broadcast channel uh and when we went to the broadcast uh that was when things took a turn uh there were many opportunities uh for happy outcomes during our broadcast on ABC7 when this person was driving in and out of traffic, but once we went to the creek uh and he ran into that truck, but that's almost exactly what we had seen in other places where he was driving, he went to change lanes and either he couldn't see the truck or he didn't know what he was doing. but he just didn't care and he ran into someone who was just minding his own business and then that person, everything started to escalate there for a moment and that's a lot of times the dangers of these chases are especially in the surveillance mode, people don't realize there's a chase going on right now, they don't realize what this person has done because they don't see police officers, they don't see law enforcement officers and therefore they don't know to stop and then this person just dodges them and everything changes. right, that seems to have been an accident right when he cut off that other truck, uh, but you were talking about when we came off the broadcast when we started this, we were going from our linear coverage to the broadcast.

He became very aggressive when he realized that those CHP vehicles were behind him every time authorities made his presence known. He increases the aggression and the speed and the weaving and the dangerous driving and Bruce Thomas stays with us here. and, you know, Bruce, when we had LAPD, we had the Laie County Sheriff, at one point we had Ventura, probably, taking a look at this, although we didn't see any Bentur law enforcement, we did see that it was then when the CHP, like Joan, was just mentioning. uh you joined so you've had multiple agencies and for the most part they've all taken the same tact which is to track the vehicle but how do things change for all of these agencies based on what we just saw between the two trucks because I still don't see any CHP, yeah, I mean, there are a couple of things going on here: one, the unpredictability of

driver

D and we've seen that trying to pass a vehicle that hits a vehicle, exiting the highway and entering The highway is totally unpredictable.

The authorities seem to be in follow mode as the weather is deteriorating with rain police helicopters normally being able to follow with low clouds and fog they may not be able to so in this case it will be a bit of a wait and see. game, maybe you can get some V CHP before the game because it's on the highway to follow this person, but I don't think they're going to actively participate at this speed, yeah, and before you said that Spike strip would be their Only possible, you know, Avenue, to stop it, but W with the rain and the other vehicles on the road, that's probably not right.

The nice thing about the barbed strip is that once it unfolds and the little metal I will call them like straws. then you put it on the tire, it lets the air out very, very slowly, so it's almost like a controlled stop, but we've seen vehicles run on tires for a long period of time without rubber, so it's not a panacea, It is not the solution. all good and if you look at this box truck it has four wheels in the back if i look at it right that means if i have it its two there in the back i cant i thought about it. but yeah it looks like there's two in the back and four in the back so you know now that makes it difficult and you know you've got the front.

Okay, but you're going to have to deflate more than six tires if you really want it to squat on the rims, yeah, and the other thing is also deploying the spike strip. You have to have a safe operational area not only for the deployment but also for the officer who is going to deploy it. That's one of the things I was thinking about before because spike strip deployment isn't just putting it on the street and safely stepping back and watching it, it's usually done between a passing car and another passing car. happens and the officer has to pull is out there, so with an unstable vehicle like this, you're really putting the officer at extreme risk, uh, because if they swerve to miss that Spike strip and roll over the vehicle, that could put in danger the life of the officer, yes, and one of the What we are seeing is that the weather is deteriorating rapidly as they move towards Ventur County and they head towards Santa Barbara Oxnard, so with the low clouds, the law enforcement may have to forego this and just watch the on and off ramps while this vehicle goes well Bruce uh this is what we're going to do real quick the broadcast is going to continue with this uh Jovana and I are going to do a pause we have some work we have to do on ABC7 uh but then we'll rejoin you and we'll continue to follow this so we'll be quiet here for about 2 to 3 minutes and then we'll rejoin the chase but the picture here in our broadcast will continue while authorities monitor this truck that was reported

stolen

approximately two hours ago for e for