A small sampling of LBPD on the scene. Photos by Greggory Moore.
6:30am | After a Saturday-afternoon foot chase resulting from a routine traffic stop, Long Beach police apprehended a convicted murderer wanted for burglary and for failing to report as required to his parole officer.
Police said that at approximately 3:30 p.m. a single police unit pulled over a vehicle traveling near Bixby Park for expired registration, and that in the process of routine contact with the occupants, one passenger fled on foot after providing police with what turned out to be a fake name.
According to witnesses and police, the suspect, whose real name was not immediately available, crossed Junipero Avenue, ran up to Broadway, then hopped a fence next to the restaurant Park Pantry.
Richard Prieto, who lives on the 2100 block of E. 2nd Street, told Long Beach Post that after hopping the fence the suspect landed in a neighbor’s backyard, then hopped a wall and landed in Prieto’s own backyard. “He fell onto our compost,” Prieto said, “then hopped the fence into [another] neighbor’s yard. That’s where police must have caught him.”
Lt. Jeff Lieberman said that after the suspect hopped the fence near Park Pantry, police set up a perimeter around the Junipero/Broadway/Kennebec/2nd Street neighborhood and brought in a K-9 unit. Residents were instructed to stay in their homes, and within about 15 minutes police found the suspect hiding in a residential backyard.
The suspect appeared to be uninjured, and police reports confirm this.
Although police could not confirm the number of officers involved in the operation, one witness told Long Beach Post he counted 36 police cars and two police helicopters.
Park Ranger Mario Camacho, who stopped the vehicle in which the suspect was riding, said occupants of a second vehicle informed Camacho that the suspect fled because he had failed to report to his parole officer has required.
“I said, ‘Why did he run?'” Camacho said. “They said he was a PAL [i.e., parolee at large].”
Police later confirmed that the suspect was also wanted for robbery.
A witness told Long Beach Post that the driver, allegedly the suspect’s girlfriend, “wouldn’t tell them [i.e., the police] nothin’, so they put her in the back of the [patrol] car.”
The driver was not arrested by police, though she turned out to have a suspended license, and the vehicle, a phthalo green Ford Explorer, was impounded.
The suspect in custody.