Features

Bay Area Briefs

Friday September 13, 2002

CHP chase ends in SF with  

two crashes, four arrests 

 

California Highway Patrol officials said a high-speed chase across the Bay Bridge early Thursday ended in San Francisco, with two crashes and the arrest of four suspects in the South of Market area. 

The fleeing van, bearing homemade paper license plates, sped up to between 80 and 100 mph at times on the bridge, according to Shawn Chase of the CHP, before crashing just after 1 a.m. on the offramp from Interstate Highway 80 at 5th Street. Although shots were also fired there no one was injured, according to Chase. 

One of the East Bay men eventually arrested was believed to be a suspect in an Oakland homicide earlier this week, Chase said.  

But Oakland police spokesman George Phillips clarified afterward that seeming similarities between this vehicle's description and one linked to the death of John Roane in a West Oakland residence Tuesday proved to be nothing after all. 

The killer in the Roane case remains at large, Phillips said, adding that these individuals may have taken off because of unrelated warrants or some other reason. 

Before the suspects were taken into custody – and one more person inside the van got away –- the van allegedly crashed into another car by running a red light at Sixth and Folsom streets. Although a man inside the other vehicle was injured, he refused medical treatment and went home. One suspect who had gotten out of the van was also injured when the vehicle ran over his foot, said the CHP spokesman. 

The early-morning chase also led officers onto rooftops and into an auto shop in the neighborhood around Folsom before the incident wrapped up around 1:30 a.m. San Francisco police assisted at the scene.