Pursuit of a Police Car (Part 1 of 2)

[DavidI]

This story is kind of funny, but also scary...at least for me.

I was working as a field supervisor at a station in South Central LA that was considered the most dangerous in the country at the time. It took a special/strange kind of cop to work this place because it was single-officer cars and we were outgunned by the bad guys in firepower. The local street gangs had high-power AK-47s and fully automatic machine guns. We had pistols, shotguns, and a few M-4 rifles. No concealable body armor stops rifle fire, and every single one of us went out into those dark streets every night. I am an optimist by nature and believe that at least 98% of the people are good, hard-working people who want what you and I want...to live, work and play in peace. I reminded my crew of this every single briefing.

This particular night was a Tuesday graveyard shift in June and the fog was rolling in. It was a particularly slow night, so I decided to make it a training night for the crew. Also, as a supervisor I did not want them to get into a pursuit because fog and police pursuits don't mix very well. I asked one the the senior field training officers to remain in the station to train the crew how to use and deploy the TASER. He was an instructor and most of my guys, and one gal, had not been trained. Without the official training, the cop cannot use it. The field training officer remained inside the station and my plan was to send two cops to the station every hour to rotate with the ones in the streets. We can never leave the streets without protection.

The plan was working very well for the first few hours. On this particular shift, one of my cops had a ride-along. It's pretty easy to go on a ride-along. You fill out the necessary paperwork, we do a background check on you to make sure you are of sound character, then you sign a waiver the night of the ride-along attesting you understand the dangers of patrol work and could be injured or killed. After that, you are good-to-go and we schedule you with a street cop for a shift. One of my guys had a tall, lanky guy on a ride-along. He did not seem unfit, deranged, or dangerous. He and the cop had been patrolling for a few hours into the shift when it was the cop's turn to return to the station to complete the TASER training.

The cop drove to the station parking lot with the ride-along. He parked the police car in the stall, exited it, and began walking toward the station building. When they were about 10 feet from the police car, the ride-along asked the cop if he could retrieve his backpack from the trunk of the car; he had stowed it there at the beginning of the shift. Because there were no red flags, the ride-along seemed normal, and he had access to the police car for the past few hours, the cop tossed him the police car keys and told him to meet him inside the station. The cop entered the building, met with the field training officer conducting the training, and completed the training paperwork. He then realized that it had been several minutes and the ride-along had not entered the station building yet.

The cop ran outside and discovered that his police car was no longer parked in the stall! In disbelief, he ran into the station building and informed the watch commander. They both ran outside and confirmed it...The police car and ride-along were gone!

For me, I was out in the field supervising the street cops. I had sent a message via the police car computer to all of my crew telling them that I am available to read, review and approve their police reports thus far in the shift. Typically, we find a place out of the way, or sometimes directly in public view to deter crime, to meet so the field supervisor can approve reports. Keep this in mind the next time you see a few police cars congregated at a local 7-11 in the parking lot. I had arrived at the arranged meeting location and one cop rolled into my location.

As soon as he stopped his police car next to mine, the police radio crackled to life. The cop who had his police car stolen broadcast the pertinent information and I was stunned! The broadcast included that the ride-along was a former police cadet from another agency and was familiar with the police car equipment. Inside the police car was a live shotgun and a loaded M-4 rifle. The ride-along was also a former military veteran, Army. This was going to be a crazy night to say the least!

I had never had this happen before and I was in charge of locating and capturing the suspect. This presented a whole lot of problems. There was no academy training, advanced officer training, or anything else that can prepare us for this event...nothing. Every police car that was out on the streets was now suspect. How would we know which police car the ride-along had stolen based on the street view? There are identifying numbers on the rooftop so the helicopter could identify the individual cop, but they were grounded due to the fog. We had no immediate method. We were fu#%ed!

Then luck came our was in a few ways. This particular police car was a Chevy Caprice, not the newer Ford Crown Victoria. This one gem excluded 90% of the police cars out there. In addition, because it was an older model, the police car mobile radio was the old-fashioned type that had two separate digits on it and you needed a radio sheet to decipher the various radio frequencies. This gave us the advantage so we could select a different frequency so we could all find to communicate, but the ride-along could not. The newer cars had digital screens with titles instead of codes to locate a radio frequency easier. We immediately switched to a tactical channel and began our "grid search" of the city. I requested as many available police units and agencies as possible to assist us. I even got our helicopters to spin up to assist us despite the dangerous weather situation. I must have had 250 patrol cars from every agency you can think of under my command assisting us in locating our stolen police car.

Continued in Part 2

[DavidI]

Part 2

After a couple of minutes, the ride-along himself began broadcasting on our "dispatch frequency!" I had switched over to our tactical frequency and was notified by desk personnel that he was broadcasting. I switched back to the frequency he was on. The ride-along broadcast that he was sorry for stealing the police car, he did not intend on hurting anyone, but was going to kill himself with the loaded shotgun in the police car. In addition, he had activated the overhead rotating lights and siren as he drove. We knew this because we heard the siren it in the background of his broadcast. Immediately, ice flowed through my veins!

One of the cops from a different station that shared our dispatch frequency heard the ride-along's broadcast and immediately began a Crisis Negotiation Intervention in an effort to diffuse the situation and persuade him to surrender and not hurt himself. The ride-along seemed deranged and intent on carrying out his plan. He told the CNT cop that after being discharged from the military, his dream was to become a cop but he was disqualified. He no longer had a purpose in life and wanted to end it all. He refused to provide his location, destination, and unfortunately at that time, cop cars did not have GPS. After about 20 more minutes, he provided his location, but refused to give us his destination, a city about 15 miles away. He was on the move...and fast!

By this time, I had several police department helicopters from various agencies and their forces searching for our ride-along. One of the local agency helicopters located him in the police car near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Center. Now, I had several of my crew behind him...pursuing a police car! The ride-along broadcast that it would be funny if he rammed through the gates of the Naval Base! I immediately thought of the lethal ramifications for my guys if he did that. The gates are guarded by Marines. The first police car, the ride-along, would probably crash through the gates without incident because the Marines would not be expecting it; however, the next few police cars would most likely have been fired upon by the Marines, fearing a terrorist attack! There was no way to immediately contact the base and warn them. Luckily, the CNT cop talked him out of it.

Now the real pursuit began. I had about 75-100 police cars and at least 5 police helicopters pursuing the radio car in a bazaar sequence of events. I was in communication via cell phone to the station watch commander, a very close friend of mine. He asked me the funniest thing: "David, can you think of anything else we can do?" I always prided myself in my police abilities to solve the most complex problems. I responded, "Byron, I don't know." We both laughed because of both nervousness and uncertainty, plus I was driving about 100 mph in pursuit of a stolen police car! On a side note, when Byron retired I told this story to about 500 attendees and Byron and I cracked up the entire time!

We pursued the stolen police car for about 25 miles though local cities ultimately entering the 710 freeway northbound. We had completely shut down the freeway in both directions. Although the CHP command staff was not happy about the closures, I had about 15 CHP cars involved in the pursuit. We pursued him for about 15 additional miles and he suddenly stopped on the freeway. It was a Hollywood scene with more police cars than you can count and multiple police helicopters overhead. Some of the brake pads on the police cars had literally caught fire because they had been worked so hard! It's strange how I remember small details like that as we were dealing with such an outrageous incident.

The ride-along removed the shotgun from its rack and presumably racked a live round into the chamber. This was it!!!

Police agencies had recently approved the red dot laser sights mounted on duty pistols. The interior of the stolen police car was almost completely illuminated from hundreds of small red laser dots! I quickly began ordering most cops to put their guns away because we did not need hundreds of shooters, only a few marksmen in the event the situation turned ugly. Most were pissed at me at the time, but I was the "Alpha Dog" and they knew it.

After approximately 5 minutes of waiting, the ride-along threw the shotgun out of the open driver's side window, crashing on the freeway asphalt. Although there was a small sense of relief, he still had an M-4.

After a few more minutes, he put the car in drive and slowly drove about another 50 feet forward and stopped again. By this time, it was growing more difficult to hold the hundreds of cops back. I ordered them to approach the car with a ballistic shield, designated shooters, and less-lethal. The team approached and snatched him through the open window.

I was very impressed with their restraint in not letting their emotions take control of them and beating the life out of this man. We took him into custody without incident.

I conducted the debriefing with all of the assembled cops right there on the freeway. I stood on the hood of one of our police cars and thanked them for their readiness to apprehend a dangerous criminal and their professionalism. I also apologized to the supervisors of the various agencies because of the fried brakes and one responding officer wrecked his police car.

The bad guy was proven unfit to stand trial and served 90 days in a mental institution.

Tales from the streets....David

[pwd72s]

Police work...hours of boredom, moments of terror?

[astrochex]

Man, David, thanks for another gripping reminder of the difficulties that law enforcement can face on a daily basis. I appreciate you highlighting decision points and factors at key moments.

[nvr2mny]

David, great story. One of my best friends out here served in that station during that period, I believe. You know a Jenkins, or two?

[HardDrive]

Great write up, thank you for sharing!

[Baz]

Wow - glad it had an ending without loss of life.

My takeaway is there are many souls in society who need help. Many never really get it. And I'm sure sometimes it doesn't matter but there are many times it does.

Thanks for sharing, David. Stay safe!

[Seahawk]

What is most interesting to me is the very thin, gossamer, veneer between order and bedlam in our cities.

David is providing a peek behind the curtain, fascinating and alarming.

Best to you.

[DavidI]

I have hundreds of crazy stories over the course of more than 30 years doing this job. I have several that are too dark to type, others that have you scratching your head, others that are truly unbelievable but true, and others that are warm and heartwarming.

Thank you guys for reading some small crazy adventures!

Next will be a story about an elderly man who was a thorn in my side, until he because a mentor and confidant...Mr. Heard.

nvr2mny, tell Jenkins I said hello! It's been many years!

[Bugsinrugs]

That’s a very gripping story. Needless to say, the men and women that are police have a very hard job.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Great stuff David, thanks for sharing!

[manbridge 74]

Tales From the Thin Blue Line... love them.

My cousin is a night shift Sheriffs deputy so I am praying for him daily...

Great story, David--thanks for taking the time to write it in such an engaging way. My BIL spent over 30 years as a sergeant, detective, FTO, and who knows what else in Montgomery County MD, just over the DC line. He used to tell us all kinds of crazy stories, but then he saw some things that kinda killed the light in him and he clammed up. I'm sure you know what I mean.

[GH85Carrera]

David, you are a great story teller. Interesting event, and great no one was really hurt. Cops and EMT folks have lots of good stories.

One of my friends is the former Oklahoma County Sheriff, now retired. He talked once about a sweet little old lady that lived just 1/2 a mile from a police station he worked at just before he ran for Sheriff.

The lady would call and claim the invisible monster was hiding in her walls and she would keep calling until they came over. They learned to come up to her house with two cars, light and sirens blasting. They would run to the back of her house and pretend the two cops were trying to restrain a combative guy. So they sorta dance around and acted like it was a real effort. They oped up the back door of the cruiser, and pretended to put the intruder in the car. And they drove off.

She was happy for most of a year, and they just had to do it again. She had no family, and was not nuts enough to be a danger so no laws were broken and there was really nothing else to do but play along.

[rusnak]

Great story!

The brakes were cooked because the police were start/ stopping a lot on the freeway?

I would not have wanted to be the guy approaching the fugitive while holding a shield !!!

[brainz01]

Thank you for posting these. And your writing style is terrific.

[DavidI]

Originally Posted by rusnak

Great story!

The brakes were cooked because the police were start/ stopping a lot on the freeway?

I would not have wanted to be the guy approaching the fugitive while holding a shield !!!

The abrupt stopping happened on the streets because this guy was driving like a maniac. Be careful what you ask for regarding the shield. That person cannot draw his firearm and has to be a shield no matter what takes place. If a partner is shot, the shield cop has to maintain the integrity of the protection, even if the shot cop is his best friend. Each position is very difficult and looks fun in the movies, but is filled with terror during the actual incident. Anyone who tells you that he/she is not scared is either lying or a sociopath. Fun times for people who love to live "on the edge!"