Watch Suspect Drive into Traffic to Try to Flee Calif. Police During Chase
By Annie Vainshtein
Source San Francisco Chronicle
A man was arrested after trying to escape officers by driving toward oncoming traffic on Highway 101 before his vehicle caught fire and he was arrested, San Rafael Police Department officials said Wednesday.
Video footage from the Sonoma Sheriff's helicopter captured the dramatic chase on Monday morning, where the driver allegedly tried to evade officers by entering the freeway in San Rafael and then driving in the wrong direction, officials said. It was not immediately clear why the person was fleeing police.
California Highway Patrol officials, who initially pursued the driver, discontinued the chase but had their helicopter track the vehicle by air while ground officers conducted traffic breaks and stopped cars at the freeway merge of northbound U.S. 101 and westbound Interstate 580 in Central San Rafael, officials said.
In the video, the driver's vehicle is seen being followed by a CHP officer before the fleeing driver takes a turn onto the highway — directly into oncoming traffic — and begins driving on the shoulder of the highway, speeding past CHP officers and blocks of cars stopped to let him pass.
During one of the traffic stops, an officer used the front of his police car to sideswipe the driver's vehicle against the concrete shoulder wall. The vehicle hit another car in the process, but neither the driver of the other car nor the officer were injured, police said.
The video culminated with armed officers surrounding the driver's car, demanding he leave the vehicle as smoke pours out of it. The video shows the suspect behind the wheel raising his hands, pointing to the door.
"The car's on fire," an officer says on the video. Officers spray the car with a fire extinguisher and surround it, pointing their guns toward the driver. When the officers pull him out of the vehicle, the driver yells in pain.
Officers said they arrested the suspect and returned him to Rohnert Park as part of an ongoing investigation, but did not say for what. He was not immediately identified.
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