Juvenile Driver, Attempting to Elude Police, Smashes Stolen Car Into Tree, Injuring Three

[Updated] A 17-year-old boy allegedly driving a stolen car and attempting to elude police crashed into a tree at a high rate of speed about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night, injuring himself and two other occupants of the car.

Police were not in pursuit at the time of the wreck, which occurred on Linda Vista Avenue at Inverness Drive, Lt. Mark Goodman said.

Goodman said police were initially alerted by the boy’s mother, a Los Angeles resident, who called with information that her missing son might be in the area of Fair Oaks Avenue and Maple Street, and that her son was possibly driving a stolen car.

A responding officer spotted the car from a distance, but the driver accelerated away at a high speed and the officer could not find it, and thus could not pursue it.

Pasadena police assigned a helicopter to search for the car, Goodman said, and the airship located the car driving northbound on Linda Vista Avenue. There were no police vehicles near it at the time it was located.

“Unfortunately the driver lost control of the vehicle,” Lt. Goodman said. “And he collided with a tree.”

The driver was taken into custody. Three occupants were transported to a local hospital with injuries, Goodman said.

Goodman said police identified the car as having been stolen out of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Division area.