Four Hurt After Pursuit With Stolen Truck Ends In Violent Wreck In Lake Balboa
LAKE BALBOA (CBSLA) – An apparent police pursuit with a stolen pickup truck ended in a violent collision with several cars in Lake Balboa Wednesday morning that left four people hurt, two of whom were trapped. Following the crash, an officer also accidentally fired a loaded gun which was found inside the truck.
According to Los Angeles police, the incident began at around 8:50 a.m. involving a stolen 2017 Toyota Tacoma truck with three occupants.
About 20 minutes later, the truck careened into several cars at the intersection of North Balboa Boulevard and Vanowen Street. Video from the scene showed a Honda sedan which was completely mangled.
At least four people were injured in the collision. Two male passengers in the truck were trapped and had to be extricated by firefighters, police confirmed. As of Wednesday evening, at least one of the patients was in critical condition.
"I was sitting at the intersection waiting to make a left, when I saw the big, gray — I don't know if it was a truck or an SUV — come through the intersection at a high rate of speed going northbound on Balboa," witness Samantha Sidman told CBS2. "He was clipped, he clipped another car, that clipped another car. But when he was clipped, because he was going so fast, he flipped up on his side, you saw him in the air. It kind of went in slow-mo for me. The sound was outrageously loud."
The driver of the truck, meanwhile, ran into a nearby McDonald's, but was tackled by officers and arrested. His name was not immediately released.
According to police, the truck had been stolen out of Marina del Rey and was used in a burglary in Topanga on Tuesday. The burglary victim allegedly spotted the truck Wednesday morning and began to follow it while calling 911, police said. One LAPD squad car discovered the truck and began to follow it. However, police said the pursuit itself did not begin until a second squad car and an LAPD chopper arrived overhead. Within seconds, the truck crashed.
"What happened was, the officers turned on their lights to initiate a stop, the suspects immediately spotted them and they accelerated quickly away from the officers, ran a red light, they ended up crashing into another vehicle," Capt. Steve Enrich told reporters.
Enrich denied, however, that a police pursuit had taken place.
"There was no pursuit, the officers merely tried to initiate a traffic stop," Enrich said. "So they turned their lights on. Approximately six to eight seconds later, the suspects collided with the other vehicle."
Police also said that after the injured suspects were pulled out of the truck, an officer discovered a gun inside of it. When the officer went to grab the gun, it accidentally went off. No one was hurt.
"Once the suspects were taken out of the car, West Valley officers were clearing the vehicle," Enrich said. One of the officers who was clearing the vehicle noticed a weapon inside the vehicle: went to go pick it up and retrieve it. The gun inadvertently went off."
Balboa Boulevard was shut down in both directions during the investigation.
