DUI Suspect Hits 130 mph, Stops for Gas Before 3 Arrests in Pasadena

Q: How did a fleeing DUI suspect manage to casually stop for gas mid-pursuit before police could intervene?

He appears to have been able to refuel because officers backed off direct contact during the most dangerous stretches of the chase and relied on tracking rather than an immediate takedown. The reporting shows the suspect was driving at extreme speeds — more than 100 mph, and in some accounts as high as 130 mph — while weaving through traffic with the headlights off. In those circumstances, California police often reduce or pause close pursuit to avoid triggering an even deadlier crash. Related coverage of the same incident says air support and remote tracking were used after officers eased off on the ground when the driver became too dangerous to follow closely. That helps explain the gas stop: the suspect exited in the San Gabriel Valley, pulled into a station, pumped gas, and left before officers moved in. Police likely judged that rushing the suspect at a public gas station could have created a worse hazard for bystanders, station employees, and other drivers, especially if the driver was impaired and still intent on fleeing. The broader arc of the pursuit supports that reading. Officers did not abandon the case; they contained it, tracked the vehicle, and made the arrest later in the North Arroyo area after the suspect stopped and a neighborhood search followed. In short, the gas stop was less a police failure than a consequence of pursuit tactics designed to reduce immediate public danger.

Q: What extreme tactics finally allowed officers to capture the reckless driver hiding in the dark North Arroyo neighborhood?

Officers ultimately captured the driver by flooding the dark North Arroyo neighborhood with a large-scale ground search and then taking the suspect into custody once police closed in on the hiding spot. The reporting provided does not confirm a more unusual “extreme” tactic such as a PIT maneuver, spike strips, a K-9 deployment, or an air-unit extraction in this specific case. What is clearly established is that after the pursuit ended in North Arroyo, the suspect abandoned the immediate escape route, hid in the neighborhood, and was found through a coordinated search by officers on the ground. So the decisive step was not another freeway maneuver but the neighborhood manhunt itself: officers searched the area in the dark, located the suspect, and made the arrest.

Q: Why did local police logs seemingly miss the dramatic conclusion of this 100-mph chase in their own jurisdiction?

The most likely reason is that the chase’s ending was handled primarily by the California Highway Patrol, not Pasadena police, so it may never have appeared in Pasadena’s public-facing call log as a clearly labeled pursuit arrest. The reporting says CHP initiated and maintained the DUI pursuit from the 5 Freeway through multiple jurisdictions before it ended in the North Arroyo area. Pasadena’s published calls-for-service log for that night shows routine traffic stops, assists and suspicious-circumstance calls, but nothing explicitly tied to a CHP chase. That is not unusual: local logs often capture only incidents dispatched by that department, use generic labels such as “outside assist” or “motorist assist,” or omit sensitive tactical details while an operation is active. There is also a timing and geography issue. The chase crossed Los Angeles County, entered Pasadena-adjacent North Arroyo late in the event, and ended after a neighborhood search. If Pasadena officers played only a support role, the incident could have been logged under a vague category or in another agency’s system. The available Pasadena entries closest in time and area still do not definitively match the pursuit, which suggests the dramatic finale was either coded differently, recorded under CHP channels, or withheld from the simplified public log. In short, the “missing” ending likely reflects jurisdiction, logging practices and limited public call-log detail, not that the event failed to occur.

3 articles · Updated · KABC-TV · Jul 27

More than 130 mph speeds marked a Sunday night CHP chase from the West Valley to Pasadena, where the suspected DUI driver and two passengers were arrested after bailing out and running.
The maroon Dodge Charger had blacked-out windows and no headlights, and AIR7 lost sight of it at times because of the extreme speed.
Several gallons of gas were pumped mid-pursuit after the driver exited the freeway at a gas station, then rejoined the chase before it ended near Del Monte Street and Forest Avenue.
A separate West Valley pursuit also unfolded Sunday night: a driver and passenger who fled near Van Nuys Airport and reached Chatsworth were both taken into custody.