Six people were injured, including one child, after a stolen vehicle pursued by police in Valley Glen ended up in a multi-car crash Monday, the latest accident resulting from high-speed police pursuits in Los Angeles.
A dashcam video shows that before the SUV collided nearly head-first with another car at the intersection of Vanowen Street and Bellaire Avenue, its passenger-side front wheel was disabled.
The video also shows that after the stolen car crashed, a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car drove through the same intersection, apparently in pursuit. According to KTLA5, the pursuit suspect attempted to flee on foot.
As KTLA5 reported, the stolen vehicle pursuit began at the 14400 block of Oxnard Street after calls about the stolen vehicle came in around 5:40 p.m. The chase ended in a crash three miles away.
According to the L.A. Fire Department, five adults and one child were taken to a hospital in fair condition.
In 2017, a report by the Los Angeles County’s grand jury found that police chases in the county were “causing unnecessary bystander injuries and deaths.”
According to LAPD data presented to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners in April, of the 4,203 police chases that have occurred since 2018, more than 1,000 resulted in an injury or death. Almost half of the people who were injured or killed during police chases were bystanders.
On Jan. 31, two men were killed in a police pursuit after the driver of a stolen vehicle T-boned their parked car.
According to a May L.A. Times column, the police department is analyzing how other cities have fared after they adopted more restrictive policies.