Police pursuit ends in crash that kills one woman, injures others

A suspect is in custody after leading Los Angeles police on a car chase Saturday afternoon that ended in the death of a driver and injuries to two other people in the San Fernando Valley.

About 1:45 p.m., officers spotted a stolen white Mercedes near the intersection of Vanowen Street and Corbin Avenue in Winnetka, according to LAPD Officer Mike Lopez. As the officers followed the car, Lopez said, the driver of the Mercedes accelerated away, prompting a pursuit.

As the driver fled, he struck a white Tesla that was westbound on Saticoy Street, police said. The Tesla then hit two other cars.

The suspect, a 42-year-old man, was taken into custody and transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The Tesla driver, a 40-year-old woman, was pronounced dead at the scene. Another woman in a car hit by the Tesla was treated at the scene, and a man from a separate car was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police had not released the name of the suspect but said they would do so once he was booked.

Almost half of the people injured or killed during police chases in Los Angeles since 2018 were bystanders, according to LAPD data released last year. According to findings presented to the Board of Police Commissioners, LAPD officers have been involved in at least 4,203 pursuits since 2018; roughly a quarter (1,032) resulted in a crash that caused injuries or death.

Nearly half of those injury crashes hurt people who weren’t involved in the chase — with 496 injured and nine killed. By comparison, 462 fleeing suspects were injured in that span, with five dying, according to the report.

Under LAPD policy, officers are allowed to initiate a pursuit in response to a suspected felony or for certain misdemeanors such as reckless or drunk driving.