Police chase suspect nearly hits pedestrians

All right, Star, thanks much. We have this breaking news right now. It is dark outside already, but you're looking at a pursuit in the downtown L.A. area. Oh, wow. People almost hit right there in the crosswalk. This suspect wanted for reckless DUI, and you saw a move right there that could have been very dangerous, if not deadly. Look at the moves there, going in the wrong, almost the wrong lane there. This is still considered rush hour at this time, so Fairly busy in downtown LA at this hour. Lots of people getting off of work or coming home. So right now the information we have is this is a suspect wanted for reckless DUI. Started in East LA. Are those motorcycles right there? Bike people on bikes. Okay, sport bikes right there. Right there. Those three cars look exactly alike from the sky. But there you have this suspect here. With concerns with so many pedestrians on the street there and these scooters that are out there and the bikes and the e-bikes, very dangerous, scary to have a pursuit in the downtown area right now. It's not bumper to bumper. It's not back to back. So the suspect is able to maneuver through the streets. Whoa. And through a red light right there. Well, there you see why police and law enforcement are after this suspect. Another pedestrian in the crosswalk there going through a red light there. So obviously, there's great concern with police, law enforcement, sheriff's department trying to stop this suspect here. Another pedestrian in the crosswalk. This driver does not seem to care. You saw that driver blow through those red, oh, oh, red lights, almost hit a car here, unsuspecting drivers. Unsuspecting pedestrians and people on the scooters and then the bikes, the e-bikes. If you've been downtown, you know that there are a lot of those, you know, for rent kind of scooter things. You can just put down a credit card, hop on a scooter, hop on an e-bike. They're all over downtown. And plus, you have people who just don't have a car because they live and work in the downtown area and a large homeless population as well. So we'll see right here what happens with this pursuit. And you can see time after time, we're seeing pedestrians there in the crosswalk. All right, joining us now is our police specialist, Dennis Zine. Dennis, this is a dangerous one with all those people on the streets there. Well, commuter time, Christine, is the worst time. For the public, when a pursuit takes place and the officers have to make sure that they protect the people, the motorists, the pedestrians, the bicycle riders, people getting out of work, you get a lot of traffic, especially in that downtown area. And what we see happen many times, they'll go into a parking structure and leave the vehicle and bail in a parking structure. We've seen that happen many, many times. And the helicopter has a hard time negotiating with all the towers, all the tall buildings. that occupy downtown. So this is obviously a dangerous situation. Traffic is moving pretty smooth as we see with the vehicle traveling now. Oh no, oh no. Looks like, Dennis, the driver's going the wrong way down a one-way. Of course, you know downtown LA very well with all the one-way streets. One-way street, long way, so obviously they're trying to escape. I don't see a unit behind or anywhere in close proximity. I'm sure there's an air unit overhead. But if this person's a DUI, they're definitely risking their own safety as well as everyone else. Now they're on the wrong side of the road. Yeah, with oncoming traffic there. So just weaving in and out. It'd be nice if they could get a motor officer behind to negotiate through this traffic. I know I've done that many times in the past, and it's difficult for those cars, the police units, to be in pursuit. They may just terminate this because of the hazard involved. But at the same time, I don't see any black and whites or any police units in the vicinity of this pursuit. Well, Dennis, we are live here on Fox 11 watching a pursuit. As you see, there are pedestrians there, people on the street there. Not sure why this suspect. Oh, OK. A vehicle's in the way. And as you can see there. The driver is just moving around any vehicle he wants or she. I'm not sure if it's a male or female or if there's anybody else involved in the car. Again, wanted for reckless DUI in an alley now. Now, I mentioned also, Dennis, not only do you have the pedestrians and those on the scooters, but you have quite an unhoused population downtown as well. Well, it looks like they're going into that particular unhoused area. And it looks like a dark alley with no illumination. Again, there's no police unit in the close proximity, but I'm sure there's an air unit that's broadcasting, and the ground units have to negotiate through traffic to get to that location. And this individual's put themselves in quite a predicament, because it doesn't look like there's any way to escape what they have in that particular alley. It's very, very dark. It seems they turned the light on inside the vehicle, and they're stopping now to maybe bail from that car, which is obviously going to be extremely dangerous. Yeah, I don't know if we're a little bit ahead of you or not, so I'm going to try to paint the picture from what I see here. The person, okay, we're hearing from our producers, the person has bailed from the car. Not sure if they are running, walking, or just able to slip away. Obviously, it was a very dark alley there. I don't know if the car was boxed in or stuck, but looks like that person is making their escape. Not sure if police are in the vicinity or... Somehow able to track this suspect, and as you said, we have flashlights there. Dennis, you mentioned that helicopter overhead. I don't see that night sun that we're so used to seeing where you can really have a spotlight on the suspect. Exactly. They would normally have that activated. I don't know if that's an officer's flashlight that we see flashing or something else, but this individual's put themselves in quite a predicament in that isolated area with apparently homeless, and we'll see what... Looks like a police supervisor or a security type person or somebody who knows the area well, someone in uniform, but I don't see any black and whites or any other units at the scene. Well, oftentimes you have people who know the area, maybe they're security for one of the businesses there, or they are familiar with the unhoused people who live in that area and might have more of a comfort in going into a space like that than, say, perhaps an LAPD vehicle or any kind of other law enforcement vehicle that wouldn't want to get boxed in. It's very dark. It looks like that alley is quite blocked. It looks like there's a lot of items that blocked that alley. That's maybe why they left the car. Dennis, because we've lost any sight of a suspect here and not sure what's happening there on the ground, we're going to step away from this and continue with more news after a break. If we need to come back to this pursuit in downtown L.A., we will do so. Thank you for your time, Dennis. I'll be here. All right, thanks. I'm all ready. Okay.