A police chase through a South Los Angeles neighborhood ended in a violent crash Monday morning, overturning one vehicle and striking several others near 84th Street and Budlong Avenue. The collision happened around 10:30 a.m. as a suspect fleeing Los Angeles Police Department officers slammed into multiple parked or moving vehicles before being taken into custody at the scene.
The suspect had been driving a possibly stolen vehicle and struck multiple vehicles during the pursuit, causing one to overturn, according to ABC7 Los Angeles. Emergency crews responded with five ambulances and extraction tools, and scene conditions indicated at least one person may have been trapped inside a vehicle. Injury details were not immediately available, the station reported.
Additional LAPD officers were summoned to the area to redirect traffic and manage crowd control as the wreckage was cleared. The suspect was ultimately taken into custody at the crash site, though it remains unclear what initially prompted officers to pursue the vehicle.
A Familiar Pattern on South LA Streets
Monday's crash adds to a string of recent South Los Angeles pursuits that have ended in destruction. Just weeks ago, an LAPD chase that began near Imperial Highway and 114th Street ended with a driver smashing five parked cars before being arrested with a broken nose, as Hoodline previously reported. In May, a brief pursuit ended fatally at Slauson and Denker avenues when a fleeing Tesla struck a Mercedes, killing the other driver and leading to felony evading charges.
Stolen vehicle enforcement remains one of the top reasons LAPD officers initiate pursuits in the first place, according to a department study cited by Crosstown LA, which found stolen vehicles accounted for 44 percent of chases alongside DUI and reckless driving cases. The same outlet reported that 81 percent of pursuits resulting in severe injury or death lasted less than three minutes and ended within two miles of where they began, leaving supervisors little time to weigh whether to call off a chase.
Citywide Numbers Show Rising Risk
The scale of the problem has been building for years. The LAPD recorded a record 1,116 vehicle pursuits citywide in 2024, resulting in 114 civilian injuries and three civilian deaths, per ABC7's earlier reporting on the trend. Roughly a quarter of LAPD pursuits between 2018 and March 2023 ended in collisions causing serious injury or death, with nearly half of those victims being uninvolved bystanders, according to an LA Board of Police Commissioners report.
Statewide, the numbers tell a similar story. California law enforcement agencies reported nearly 12,000 vehicle pursuits in 2022, with 19 percent ending in crashes that caused 1,445 property-damage incidents, 798 injuries, and 32 fatal crashes resulting in 34 deaths, according to the California Highway Patrol.
What Comes Next for the Suspect
LAPD policy requires officers initiating a pursuit to continually weigh public safety risks against the severity of the suspected crime, notify dispatch, request air support, and consider whether a suspect could be apprehended later, per the department's own guidelines. Field supervisors are authorized to end a chase if conditions in the neighborhood make continued pursuit unreasonably dangerous.
Fleeing or attempting to elude police with willful disregard for safety is a wobbler offense under California Vehicle Code Section 2800.2, carrying up to three years in state prison and fines up to $10,000. Should any of the crash victims turn out to have suffered serious bodily injury, prosecutors could pursue an enhanced felony charge under Vehicle Code Section 2800.3, which carries three, five, or seven years in state prison. It remains unknown whether any victims were hospitalized or what specific charges, if any, prosecutors will ultimately file against Monday's suspect.
