Cross-County Chase Ends at I-5 and La Paz ... and an Arrest

Anaheim police chased a woman in a pickup truck from an alleged “hand-to-hand drug transaction'' outside a hotel to the southbound lanes on two freeways at speeds of up to 100 mph before a California Highway Patrol maneuver caused her to spin out of control and stop where she was arrested in Laguna Hills, an Anaheim police sergeant said today.

The incident began at about 10 p.m. Saturday outside a hotel near Tustin and La Palma avenues, Sgt. Daron Wyatt said.

“A patrol unit saw what appeared to be a hand-to-hand narcotics transaction. When officers came on the scene a male got into a vehicle and fled in one direction and a female got into a pickup truck and fled in another direction,” Wyatt said.

Officers pursued the woman in the pickup truck westbound on the Riverside (91) Freeway until she got off on Kraemer Boulevard, he said. Then she went north to Orangethorpe Avenue and turned west.

As the woman approached the Orange (57) Freeway on Orangethorpe she “rammed a vehicle that was in her way,” Wyatt said.

Anaheim police chased the woman south on the Orange Freeway to the southbound Santa Ana (5) Freeway and they were handing off the pursuit to the California Highway Patrol at La Paz Road in Laguna Hills when the CHP performed a precision immobilization technique, or PIT maneuver, to cause the pickup truck driver to lose control and stop. The pursuit lasted 23 minutes.

Speeds were up to 100 mph during the pursuit, he said. No narcotics were found in the truck, but officers found “several IDs that were not hers,” so she will be investigated for identity theft.

The woman, believed in her mid-30s, would likely be booked on suspicion of felony evading and assault with a deadly weapon (vehicle) charges, the latter for ramming the vehicle in her way at Orangethorpe, Wyatt said.

--City News Service