Los Angeles police shoot driver dead after high-speed chase

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/05/los-angeles-police-shoot-driver-dead-chase

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Police in Los Angeles have shot dead the driver of a stolen vehicle after a high-speed pursuit ended in a collision.

An LAPD police cruiser in North Hollywood started following a grey sedan at around 1.45am in the early hours of Thursday because it had paper plates and was driving erratically, Sergeant Frank Preciado, a department spokesman, told a press conference.

The car accelerated, prompting a six-minute chase which ended when the driver turned into a cul-de-sac in Burbank.

The driver and police patrol car then collided. The officer in the passenger seat of the police vehicle opened fire.

Wounded, the man abandoned the car and ran but was caught and handcuffed, another spokeswoman, Officer Wendy Reyes, said. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him in vain.

It was the LAPD’s second fatal shooting this week. On Sunday three officers shot a homeless man in the Skid Row area of downtown.

Police initially said it appeared the man deliberately rammed the vehicle but later investigation showed he did not intentionally ram. “It was a straight collision,” Preciado said.

The LAPD did not say whether the man, whose identity has not been released, had a weapon. According to KTLA he was Hispanic. No officer was injured.

Britta Hamrick, a resident, told KTLA TV news: “I could hear screeching … as soon as the car stopped I could see the lights from the police vehicle [and] I heard pop pop, pop pop.”

John Zunino, another resident, told the Los Angeles Times the commotion woke him up. “All I heard was sirens and gunshots. I kept hearing them get louder and louder … then I hear pop-pop-pop-pop, like five or six gunshots.”