A high-speed pursuit rocked rush hour traffic in Malibu on Monday night when an hour-long car chase that began in Camarillo sped through town on Pacific Coast Highway before ending back where it began, near the Point Mugu Naval Airbase.
The driver was identified as 28-year-old Julian Rivera of Oxnard. Rivera was driving on a suspended license, according to an arrest report.
The pursuit began in Ventura County at about 5:30 p.m. when a Ventura-area California Highway Patrol officer attempted to pull over a white Toyota RAV4 SUV on suspicion of speeding. The driver was driving southbound on PCH at about 110 MPH, Ventura CHP Officer Steve Reid said.
The driver continued south on PCH, where the West Valley-area CHP took over the pursuit. But the driver flipped the switch and made a u-turn in Pacific Palisades, heading north toward Malibu.
During the second half of the chase, Rivera weaved in and out of rush-hour traffic in central Malibu. He continued north, back into Ventura County, where the Ventura area CHP successfully used spike strips, which can shred tires, to stop the car, Reid said.
The driver pulled over about 6:45 p.m. near the Point Mugu Naval Airbase. Rivera was arrested for felony evading, according to the arrest report.
Reid said emergency responses to car chases such as this are “carefully orchestrated” and require communication and proper training.
“The whole thing with pursuits is we want to make sure that, a, we conduct them in accord with department policy and, b, that we conduct them safely in terms of public safety,” Reid said. “And the one other element that comes into play in pursuits is supervision.”
Monday’s pursuit was a joint effort between CHP in Malibu and Ventura, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department. CHP officers pursued the vehicle on the ground, leaving a “speed cushion,” while Sheriff ’s Department helicopters monitored from above.
“Because the helicopter was above, it made it really, really easy for us to keep that speed cushion,” said West Valley CHP Officer Leland Tang. “Officers tend to give a little bit of space so that the vehicle being pursued doesn’t speed up. The logic is that if I give a good distance between my vehicle and the vehicle I am pursuing, they are not going to speed up further.”
Tang said that no matter whom the helicopter belongs to, all law enforcement helicopters already have various police department radio frequencies programmed so they can easily switch frequencies and communicate across departments when chases occur.
Spike strips are one of several methods that can be used to help end a chase. Other methods include a pursuit intervention technique, or PIT, in which a patrol vehicle taps the back of a car to cause it to spin out, creating roadblocks or surrounding a vehicle with three patrols cars to force the driver to slow down.
Tang said, however, that many of these methods are unsafe in Malibu because they risk public safety and, in some cases, officer and driver safety. Spike strips were used just outside of Malibu because they presented no risk to the public.
“The area that they used is an area that we always use, and there’s actually a spike strip station there, and they actually have a spike strip kit in the area,” Tang said. “The officer can deploy the spike strip and then hide behind a brick wall so he doesn’t get hit.”
Tang, who watched the pursuit on television, said the aerial footage showed Malibu residents responded to the chase as drivers should.
“All the cars, all of our residents did an awesome job of pulling to the right and stopping. You didn’t see anyone stop in the middle of the street. You didn’t see people turn in front of the vehicle,” Tang said. “Everything we saw on TV, we would love to have the rest of the country act and behave like Malibu. It was fantastic.”