Watch police rescue car theft suspect who fell off cliff — running from cops in CA
An elite helicopter crew rescued a stolen vehicle suspect who ran off a 40-foot cliff while fleeing California police, video shows.
The suspect was one of three in a stolen car Palos Verdes Estates police spotted around 5 p.m. Friday, and when officers tried to pull them over, they sped off, PVEPD Captain Luke Hellinga told McClatchy News. Concerned for the safety of civilians on the road, officers decided not to give chase, but began searching the area.
A search helicopter was in the air as well.
Police caught up with them at a dead end street, Hellinga said, where they had ditched the vehicle, fled on foot and hopped a fence.
One didn’t make it far.
“[He] probably didn’t know the area, we’re assuming, because basically he just jumped over a fence and unknowingly fell down this canyon,” an official with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) told McClatchy News.
The suspect had significant injuries to his lower body, and when a call to SEB tactical paramedics first came in, they were told he wasn’t moving.
“He was not going to get out of there on his own,” the official said.
The SEB’s Air Rescue 5 helicopter crew was already in the air assisting in a training exercise, and arrived on scene in just minutes, Deputy Sheriff Paramedic Joe Palomino said.
His team hovered overhead, and after a quick check with his binoculars to ensure the suspect wasn’t holding any weapons, he lowered a man down to grab him, hoisting the suspect to safety before flying to a trauma center for treatment.
Palomino, like the rest of his team, is trained to rescue all kinds of people in all kinds of environments and predicaments, he said. Rescuing a suspect who hurt himself running from the law is “atypical” but not unheard of, he said.
“Although he’s a suspect, at the end of the day he’s a patient. He was hurt and we were in a good position to help him out and we got him to the hospital,” Palomino said. “Whatever happens after that is between him and the justice system. That’s kind of how it is for us.”
All three suspects were caught, Cpt. Hellinga said, and detectives are still investigating before charges are finalized.