By Eric Ting
SFGate, San Francisco
PITTSBURG, Calif. — Bay Area News Group obtained footage of a police chase in the East Bay that most closely resembles something from Grand Theft Auto.
Reporter Nate Gartrell noted as much in a tweet sharing a link to the story, calling the incident the “craziest police chase I’ve ever covered in my career” and “almost straight outta GTA.”
According to Bay Area News Group, the chase — which spanned two days and multiple cities in June — started in Pittsburg when officials sought the arrest of 28-year-old Victor Topete, who was out on bail for a prior manslaughter case in Fresno in April. Police tried to pursue Topete after he allegedly kidnapped a friend and stole his car after asking for a ride.
Topete then allegedly stole his parents’ Ford F250, and was pursued by officers from multiple departments across the East Bay, which culminated in a surreal series of events that began on Fish Ranch Road in Orinda (begins at the 53-second mark).
The surveillance footage shows the vehicle owned by Topete’s parents driving the wrong way on Fish Ranch Road, leading to a subsequent head-on crash with a police vehicle driven by a member of the Lafayette Police Department, who sustained a head injury but recovered.
The footage then shows a man wearing a neon vest — alleged to be Topete — exit the truck and jump down from a ledge estimated to be at least 20 feet in height, and proceed to make his way onto the portion of Highway 24 near the entrance of the Caldecott Tunnel.
The man then gets hit by a pickup truck, but recovers and steps in front of another incoming vehicle, which causes the driver to stop. He appears to try to open the driver door, but is unsuccessful and the car leaves. He tries this again on another vehicle and is apparently able to get the door to open, but the driver speeds away while the man hangs onto the doorframe.
The car then stops, and the neon-vested man is able to remove the driver and takes the vehicle himself into the Caldecott Tunnel.
“The guy in the White SUV really acted like an GTA NPC though,” a Twitter user wrote of the man forced out his vehicle (NPC stands for “non-playable character”). “No awareness, stopped there and let the dude carjack him, just like the game.”
“Pretty much,” Gartrell replied. “He told the cops later that he got confused and thought the guy was a construction worker or something because of the neon green vest.”
The chase ended not long after, since the carjacker crashed again in Berkeley and was subsequently retrieved by police after hiding in a shack at a water treatment facility.
Topete was hit with 15 felony and three misdemeanor charges following the incident. One of the charges Topete faces is “attempt to injure a police animal” after a Contra Costa County Sheriff’s deputy alleged Topete tried to gouge the eyes out of a police K-9 deputies sicced on him when he refused to exit the shack.
NEXT: LEO Near Miss: Warm breaths on a frozen night
(c)2020 SFGate, San Francisco