SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A motorist who refused to yield for a traffic stop Thursday led officers on a meandering hour-long pursuit that ended with him wounded in a fusillade of police gunfire on a Mount Hope street.
The unidentified driver, who had a female passenger with him, sped off about 8:30 a.m. when a San Diego police sergeant tried to pull him over on Grape Street in Oak Park for using a cell phone behind the wheel, SDPD public affairs Lt. Kevin Mayer said.
While chasing the 2002 Saturn sedan, police determined that it matched the description of one linked to a shooting that wounded two men in a Mountain View-area neighborhood Monday night.
The fleeing man ran stoplights while passing through parts of Paradise Hills, Bonita and National City, Mayer said. At one point, he pulled over long enough to let his companion out, then sped off again.
The suspect ran over several tire-flattening spike strips laid out in his path before finally slowing to a halt on 41st Street at Hilltop Drive.
San Diego 6 captured video images of the car stopping in the roadway with squad cars directly behind it, their sirens screaming. A moment later, a man shouted, and at least two officers opened fire, discharging about two dozen rounds in quick succession at the front and passenger side of the red sedan.
Witness Frankie Martinez described watching as the barrage of police gunfire began, then jumping onto the ground to protect himself.
“(The driver) just stopped, and they started shooting at him,” Martinez told a television reporter. “Everybody started unloading on him. He got smoked. He probably did something bad for that to happen. They didn’t even give him a chance.”
Medics loaded the wounded man onto a stretcher and took him to a trauma center. His identity and condition remained unavailable in the mid-afternoon, Mayer said.
Police closed lanes around the site of the shooting to accommodate the investigation.
http://www.sandiego6.com/story/hour-long-police-pursuit-ends-in-shots-being-fired-20140109
Did yall see the cop with the spike strips open fire with the other cops in his line of fire? These guys are out of control! They shoot and don’t even look at the surrounding area. That wouldn’t even happen in a combat zone. They look for any chance to fire their weapons. They need to be stopped!
It is only a matter of time before they do start shooting each other.
The filth just cannot wait to shoot people… They did not give him any chance, they did not try to talk him out peacefully, he may have just got out anyway! I hate the police, I look forward to the day when they start being executed for their many crimes… The people will rise up in self defense because the police do not enforce the law anymore, they are criminals who are getting away with the worst crimes because they are in a costume. It is ridiculous. They are ruining the country just like the politicians. They seem to lose sight of the fact that the people they are terrorizing are the people who pay their wages and who without they would not have a job. There is going to be a breaking point, it is getting to the stage where people like me are pleased to hear of a police officer shot and killed or injured and it is going to take a lot of effort on the part of the police to get back on side with the public and stop pandering to the corporate influence… God bless us all…
I saw the other cop car in the line of fire…..that’s nuts…..what’s the excuse for firing 24 rounds? I was expecting a stand-off, not attempted murder.
Why do they do these insane chases?? They have the license number. Wait at the home for them to show up. The Gestapo just want to endanger the people and murder someone.
Hate to say it, but this is par for the course in this sorry @ss state.
They can do this because there is no fear of repercussions.
If I were a cop, I would shoot someone 3 or 4 times a year just for the paid vacation, errr leave, paid leave.