LOS ANGELES (AP) A suspected foiled kidnapper led California Highway Patrol officers on a 3-hour freeway chase that ended with a gunpoint standoff after the CHP nudged the fleeing minivan and sent it spinning into a soundwall.
Armored Los Angeles County sheriff's vehicles boxed the stalled van on a freeway east of downtown Los Angeles after a pursuit that began in the Thousand Oaks area of neighboring Ventura County, authorities said.
After more than 30 minutes, however, the driver had not left the minivan. About a dozen SWAT members stood by as a negotiator tried to talk to the driver, who authorities said was armed with at least one handgun.
Traffic on busy Interstate 10 was backed up for miles in both directions.
The chase began at about 8:45 a.m. after a man posing as a delivery courier tried to kidnap a woman in the wealthy Lake Sherwood area, Ventura County sheriff's spokesman Eric Nishimoto said.
He met the unidentified woman on the porch, produced a handgun and a ransom note for money and "demanded that she go with him," Nishimoto said.
As they were leaving, however, the woman mouthed to a watching neighbor to call 911, Nishimoto said.
Then "she turned and ran back into the house and he took off," Nishimoto said.
It was unclear whether he knew the woman, Nishimoto said.
A short time later, sheriff's deputies spotted the minivan and chased it onto a freeway. CHP officers tracked it through two counties at speeds ranging from 35 mph to 70 mph, depending on traffic, CHP Officer Tomiekia Johnson said.
At one point, officers laid down a spike strip that blew out the van's rear tires but the van continued to drive on its rims. A CHP car bumped the vehicle three times, causing it to spin out of control briefly and at one point it appeared to nearly hit a road crew truck on the shoulder of an offramp, but the driver recovered and sped back onto the freeway.
The third time, however, the van spun completely around and struck a soundwall, jarring the bumper loose and coming to a halt.
"We're at a standoff with the suspect," who was believed to still be carrying the handgun, Johnson said.