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| quote: | Police chase ends in driver's shooting death
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A robbery suspect driving a stolen car led police on a high-speed chase Wednesday that ended with his death in a hail of police gunfire.
Sgt. Paul LeBaron with the Long Beach Police Department said the driver was pronounced dead at a hospital. No one else was injured.
When the chase ended, the man got out of the car in a parking lot and "it was clear he had a handgun," LeBaron said. "More than one officer fired more than one round," the officer added.
LeBaron said the car had been stolen during a home-invasion robbery. The chase, which began at 5:40 p.m. (8:40 p.m. ET), lasted about 20 minutes and reached speeds of 100 mph.
After stopping in the parking lot, the driver opened the car door and attempted to flee. When police opened fire, an object flew from the driver's hand and skittered out of reach across the parking lot.
Bullets appeared to strike him several times as he attempted to remove something else from a pocket.
"Pull back, pull back, pull back," yelled a reporter to a photographer for KABC, which broadcast the shooting live. "We don't want to show anything that graphic," he then told his viewers. "We want everyone at home to realize this is live television."
KTTV and KCBS also aired graphic scenes of the shooting. KNBC took the shot, but from a distance.
The chase began in Long Beach, where the man drove on Interstate 710, merged onto California Highway 91, then drove onto southbound I-110. At times, he drove along the shoulder, at times along the inside emergency breakdown lane. Several times, he drove against ongoing traffic.
At one point, he left the highway in Long Beach and crashed into a guard rail, where he came to a stop. As police approached his car, their guns drawn, the driver threw the car in reverse, and sped off onto a freeway.
In San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, he again left the freeway and began driving along surface streets, disregarding traffic lights. After a front tire disintegrated, he drove for miles on the rim, which slowed his progress.
The chase ended back in Long Beach near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Newport Avenue.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/12/ch...ting/index.html |
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