James Pringle was headed south on Sepulveda Boulevard in Manhattan Beach Thursday evening when he glanced in his rear view mirror and saw a white SUV about to plow into him. The SUV was being pursued by police cars with red lights flashing and sirens blaring.
“He was going so fast, I knew he was going to hit me. Luckily, he swerved and just clipped me. Then he swerved again and hit another car. Then he crashed into the mattress store,” said Pringle, who had been returning to his Manhattan Beach home after having had dinner with friends.
The pursuing police quickly stopped and approached the white Infiniti QX80 with drawn guns.
“He’s not in the car. He ran that way,” Pringle said he told the police as he pointed west on 14th Street.
Officers from Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach took off down 14th Street on foot and in patrol cars. With the assistance of a Redondo police dog, they soon caught the fleeing suspect in the front yard of a house in the 1400 block of Oak Avenue
Redondo Beach Police Department Sgt. Mike Snakenborg said the car chase began at Manhattan Beach and Aviation boulevards, in front of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. It began about 7:30 p.m., after Redondo Beach police were notified by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that an Infiniti stolen from a Redondo Beach home had been traced to that location by OnStar tracking. The driver of the Infiniti took flight when he became aware of a Sheriff’s helicopter overhead.
Snakenborg said the approximately 20 minute chase, involving over a dozen Redondo, Manhattan and El Segundo patrol cars, assisted by the Sheriff’s helicopter, went north on Aviation to Marine Avenue, west to Valley Drive, south to Manhattan Beach Boulevard, west to Highland Avenue, north to Rosecrans, east to Sepulveda and finally south on Sepulveda to 14th Street in Manhattan Beach, where the driver crashed the car into the Ortho Mattress Store. In addition to hitting Pringle’s car and a second car at 14th and Sepulveda Boulevard, the fleeing car hit a third car on Highland Avenue.
A Manhattan Beach resident, who asked that his name not be used, said the fleeing driver narrowly missed hitting him in front of the Belamar Hotel.
“I was on Valley, at Sepulveda, when he snaked between me and opposing traffic,” the driver said.
James Pringle’s wife Carolyn said she and her daughter Anna were at the intersection of Rosecrans and Sepulveda Boulevard when they saw the fleeing car being pursued by police. Moments later her husband called to tell her he had been hit by the fleeing car, but not injured.
The driver of the stolen car’s name has not yet been released by police, nor have the charges which will be filed against him.
“At a minimum, the suspect will be charged with fresh pursuit,” Sgt. Snakenborg said of the white, male suspect who appeared to be about 30 years old.
