The search was underway Saturday for the driver of an allegedly stolen blue Infiniti sedan who led law enforcement on a pursuit up and down freeways and on surface streets at high speeds, even stopping for gas, before abandoning the car and apparently getting away in another vehicle.
Television station helicopters followed the car starting shortly after 10 p.m. Friday as the driver went south on the Harbor (110) Freeway to Harbor City, at speeds of over 100 mph, then turned back northbound weaving between the slower vehicles on the busy freeway.
Around 10:30 p.m., he got off the freeway and drove south on Main Street near 79th Street in South Los Angeles and around surface streets in South Gate and Compton, before getting onto the eastbound Glenn Anderson (105) Freeway and then exiting at Long Beach Boulevard in Compton.
At one point, the California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Police Department broke off the pursuit in hopes the driver would slow down, but television helicopter video showed he was still speeding on surface streets.
Eventually, the driver stopped for gasoline at Eastern Avenue and Ramona Boulevard in East Los Angeles, where he was shown on TV video pulling his shirt up over his face to conceal his identity.
He wound up in the city of Bell, where police officers resumed the pursuit with the help of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s helicopter.
The driver went east and west on the Santa Monica (10) Freeway and eventually got off near downtown, where he abandoned the stolen car and got into another vehicle, possibly an SUV, seen leaving in the same direction. The stolen sedan rolled slowly down the street in the industrial area, its journey stopped by bumping into a utility pole at about 11:30 p.m.