Suspect dead after police chase, shooting

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, Dec. 27, 2002 | 11:25 a.m.

A man who rammed a Metro Police car during a high-speed chase Thursday was shot by officers and was found dead after crashing his sport utility vehicle into a gas meter, police said.

Concerns about a possible explosion after the crash prompted authorities to evacuate about 20 people from homes along East Bonanza Road near Hollywood Boulevard.

Two officers had fired at the driver of the SUV after he rammed an unmarked police car and drove at one of the officers, police said. The man did have gunshot wounds, but police this morning said it was unclear whether bullets or the crash had killed him. The coroner's office will determine the cause of death.

Thursday's incident was the second in two weeks in which a Metro Police chase started with an attempted traffic stop and ended with a police shooting.

Police did not immediately release the name of the man who died Thursday night or the officers who fired at him. The officers were put on administrative leave with pay. Under department policy, their names will not be released for 48 hours.

About 10:30 p.m. a patrol officer reportedly spotted a man driving a 2000 Chevrolet SUV erratically near Owens Avenue at Lamb Boulevard. The officer tried to stop the SUV, but the driver tried to ram the police car and sped away, Metro Capt. Dennis Cobb said. The officer broke off the pursuit, Cobb said.

About 20 minutes later, however, another patrol officer and a Metro gang unit officer in an unmarked police car found the vehicle and the chase resumed, Cobb said. Police estimated that the SUV was barreling along at more than 100 mph at some points during the chase.

In the area of Bonanza and Hollywood "the suspect rammed the gang officer's car," Cobb said.

The officer got out of the car and was telling the driver to stop. The driver backed up and headed for the officer a second time, Metro spokesman Jose Montoya said.

Cobb said the gang officer fired at the driver as the SUV came toward him.

"The patrol officer also simultaneously fired his weapon at the suspect," Cobb said.

Just before 11 p.m. the suspect drove the SUV north on Hollywood and into the yard of a house on the southeast corner of Bonanza and Hollywood, hitting a gas meter and splitting it in two. Rescue workers arrived at the scene and pronounced the driver dead.

The driver had bullet wounds, but the coroner's office will determine whether the shots or the crash killed him, police said.

Southwest Gas was called to the scene and had to dig about four feet below street level by hand in order to shut off the main gas line, said Roger Buehrer, spokesman for the company. Meanwhile five or six houses and about 20 people were evacuated and taken to nearby Kirk L. Adams Elementary School at 580 Fogg St.

Buehrer said there was not a risk of an explosion in the house where the gas meter was wrecked because because gas to the house was shut off as soon as the car hit the meter. The danger was in surrounding area outside because that's where the gas had been leaking and a spark could have set off an explosion, he said.

Two houses were left without heat for most of the night, as workers repaired damage to the meter and the gas lines, he said.

Chelsea Fowl lives on the block and was at a theater where she was about 20 minutes into the movie "Catch Me if You Can" when she got a cell phone call from her brother about the deadly version of catch-me-if-you-can that had ended in her neighborhood. Fowl, 19, and her 21-year-old brother, Jesse, were two of the approximately 20 people evacuated for a few hours Thursday night because authorities were worried about the gas leak.

Fowl, who said she would spend the night at a nearby friend's house, said she believes police have difficult decisions to make when considering whether to pursue a car at high speeds near houses.

"They could slow it down and use helicopters, but then he could get away," she said. "I would rather have him dead in his car than in my living room with a gun."

Police did not immediately say how long the chase was. Police helicopters were not used in the chase, a spokesman said.

Phil Stine, who lives behind the broken gas meter on the next block, had mixed feelings about police pursuits, after the chase ended so close to his home.

"It has its pros and cons," he said. "If the guy's a real big criminal, then he should be caught. But if it's a misdemeanor, they should let him keep going."

Stine and his family weren't able to return home until about 1:15 a.m. today.

This morning police had not said whether the motorist had been armed. Police were investigating a possible link between the driver and a robbery committed in the southwest part of the valley Thursday night, they said.

Cobb said Metro tries to balance the safety of people affected by the crime against the risks of the immediate people affected by the pursuit. A bystander has not been killed because of a police chase in the Las Vegas metropolitan area since 1981, he added.

In the last high-profile chase, Javier Chavez, 24, was killed by police Dec. 12 after a routine traffic stop turned into a chase. A sport utility vehicle fled when Officer Enrique Hernandez tried to pull it over, and crashed into a pole near 28th Street and Stewart Avenue. Hernandez chased the driver when he fled on foot and during an exchange of gunfire was shot six times.

SWAT officers later found Chavez hiding in an air conditioning duct and in an exchange of gunfire killed him. Hernandez is recovering from his wounds.

Metro's loosely defined pursuit policies were highlighted in a Los Angeles Police Commission report released last week. Los Angeles' new police chief has suggested that his city adopt more restrictions on police chases because of the danger they pose and the liability cost to taxpayers -- $1.5 million in from July 2000 to September 2002.

The police commission report noted that Las Vegas' police department allows officers to chase motorists for practically any reason and has no definitive guidelines for when to end a police pursuit. Las Vegas also had a higher percentage of pursuits that resulted in crashes, the study found.

In 2001 Metro officers were involved in 246 pursuits, and 111, or about 45 percent, resulted in crashes causing 42 injuries, according to the study. That gave Las Vegas the second highest percentage of crashes among the 20 cities in the study.

The day after the report was released, Metro Lt. Vincent Cannito, the department spokesman, defended the latitude given to Metro officers and said it was important to avoid specific guidelines.

But Clark County Sheriff-elect Bill Young, the incoming leader of the department, subsequently was quoted as saying that he would be reviewing the pursuit policy after Jan. 6, when he takes office.