High-speed chase ends with fatality

Jen Lawson

Thursday, July 22, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

Cash totaling about $4,000 flew out of the windows of a red Camaro after the driver led police on a 60-mile-long high-speed chase Wednesday that began at the California-Nevada border and ended with a crash that killed the driver just south of Las Vegas.

Joseph Galipo, 43 of Saugus, Calif., was thrown from the car and was pronounced dead at University Medical Center.

"We don't know why he ran or why he had the money," Sgt. Frank Weigand of Metro's fatal detail said while standing at the scene of the crash, a strip of desert between Las Vegas Boulevard and Interstate 15 just south of Sloan.

Shortly after 11 a.m. a California Highway Patrol trooper pulled the car over on I-15 at the Cima Road exit, about 20 miles south of the state line, for passing other vehicles on the shoulder of the highway, Lt. Steve Urrea of the California Highway Patrol said.

The trooper discovered the license plates did not match the car, and Galipo took off, continuing north on I-15, Urrea said.

Three troopers began chasing the car, he said, and a California Highway Patrol helicopter monitored the driver from the sky as it headed toward Nevada at speeds reaching 120 mph and nearly collided with other vehicles.

California troopers notified the Nevada Highway Patrol and Metro Police, and several Metro officers joined the chase. It ended before Nevada troopers got involved, police said.

Galipo exited the highway at Jean and turned onto State Route 604, Las Vegas Boulevard.

A Metro officer laid down spike strips to puncture the car's tires, but the driver swerved to avoid them and veered off the road.

The car crashed through a chain link fence, vaulted over a ditch and flipped several times, coming to rest on its roof about 100 feet off the road, Weigand said.

Weigand said Metro's involvement in the incident complies with the department's pursuit policy.

"If someone is a danger to the public, and obviously if he's driving more than 100 miles per hour he is a danger, then we would attempt to get him stopped," he said.