A stolen Nissan sedan led Los Angeles police officers on a chase through Downtown streets and onto the San Diego (405) Freeway before it ended in the Mid-City area, with four people taken into custody. Officers said an object believed to be a handgun was thrown from the vehicle while it was still on the freeway, adding a tense wrinkle to what began as a routine stolen-vehicle stop attempt.
According to MyNewsLA.com, the pursuit began near Pico Boulevard and San Pedro Street in Downtown Los Angeles after officers attempted to stop the driver of an older-model Nissan sedan that a LAPD spokesperson said was allegedly stolen. The driver instead attempted to evade police, and the chase shifted onto the 405 Freeway before eventually ending on Redondo Boulevard between 21st Street and Bangor Street in Mid-City, per police.
Video from the scene showed the Nissan being pursued by multiple police vehicles as it wove through West Los Angeles freeways and surface streets. At one point, two suspects attempted to flee on foot on the 405 Freeway before Washington Boulevard, LAPD said, and both were apprehended shortly after. Footage from the scene also showed one woman being taken into custody as the pursuit wound down. In total, four people led officers on the multi-freeway chase and were ultimately taken into custody.
An Object Believed to Be a Weapon
Investigators have not said whether the item thrown from the Nissan on the 405 was recovered, and it remains unclear what charges, if any, prosecutors will file over the alleged weapon. If the object turns out to be a dangerous item tossed with intent to cause harm, California law offers prosecutors an additional charging option: under Vehicle Code Section 23110, throwing an object at a vehicle or onto a highway is ordinarily a misdemeanor, but maliciously throwing a dangerous object capable of inflicting serious injury is a felony punishable by up to three years in state prison.
The driver's decision to flee also exposes them to separate evading charges. Under California Vehicle Code Section 2800.2, evading a pursuing police vehicle while driving with willful or wanton disregard for safety is a wobbler offense that can bring up to three years in state prison and fines as high as $10,000. It is not yet known which of the four suspects, if any, will face that charge specifically.
Part of a Broader Pattern on LA Freeways
This chase was not an isolated event overnight. Los Angeles law enforcement agencies handled another late-night stolen vehicle pursuit in South LA around the same time, where CHP and LAPD officers deployed spike strips and a PIT maneuver on the 10 Freeway before apprehending that driver after a standoff, according to CBS Los Angeles. When a local pursuit spills onto a state freeway, standard protocol calls for local agencies to maintain radio coordination while operational control shifts to CHP units, a dynamic Hoodline previously reported during a similar multi-freeway chase earlier this year.
LAPD officers are authorized to pursue suspects in cases like suspected grand theft auto, but only after weighing what the department calls a continuous balance test between public safety risk and the need to catch a suspect, according to the Los Angeles Times. That same LAPD report, presented to the Board of Police Commissioners in April 2023, found that roughly 25 percent of the 4,203 pursuits recorded between 2018 and early 2023 resulted in collisions causing injuries or deaths, with nearly half of those hurt being uninvolved bystanders.
Stolen Vehicles Still Common Despite Statewide Drop
The number of vehicle pursuits logged by LAPD has climbed in recent years even as auto theft trends statewide move in the opposite direction. LAPD recorded 1,116 vehicle pursuits in 2024, the department's highest annual total since 2018, Hoodline has reported previously. Meanwhile, California Department of Justice data released in July showed statewide vehicle thefts fell by nearly 25 percent in 2025, though law enforcement still recovered 111,661 stolen vehicles across the state that year, an 84 percent recovery rate, per FOX 11.
Officers increasingly rely on Automated License Plate Reader technology from vendor Flock Safety to flag stolen vehicles on a so-called Hot List, though officers must independently verify any match before initiating a traffic stop, according to a memorandum submitted to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners in July. It remains an open question whether ALPR technology was what first flagged the Nissan involved in Thursday's chase before officers attempted the stop near Pico Boulevard and San Pedro Street.
