Three days after a gunman killed 19 children in Texas, the El Segundo Police Department (ESPD) and agencies from Manhattan Beach and Hawthorne, K9 units, armored vehicles, drones, and crisis negotiators surrounded an unresponsive driver with a reported handgun parked blocks away from two schools. Despite the overwhelming police response, somehow, the driver accomplished what nearly 3/4 of drivers in the state of California fail to do during police chases…they got away.
Bewildered parents and spectators are now speaking out on social media and criticizing the police department for failing to close the schools, contain the driver, and relay basic information to the public.
“I have never in my life spoken out against the police, I am so confused, and I just don’t understand,” someone commented on the mayor of El Segundo’s Facebook page. “I would think with the week that our country just went through, we would be on heightened alert! How in the world, with a helicopter, a drone, SWAT, and other police agencies, does someone get away?”
According to a statement from El Segundo Police Chief Jaime Bermudez, at around 7:30 AM on Friday, officers received a report of a suspicious “male slumped over a wheel.” Firefighters responded to the scene, and one paramedic “looked inside the vehicle and observed what he believed to be a handgun in the vehicle.” Police established a containment area, and additional resources—including K9 units, armored bearcats, drones, and crisis negotiators—were called in.
Hours later, the driver “suddenly opened his door and briefly exited the vehicle,” according to Chief Bermudez, before jumping back in and reversing into a $200,000 armored military vehicle used by police, known as a BearCat. “The suspect was able to maneuver just enough to break away from the armored vehicle, and he fled northbound on Center Street then eastbound out of sight,” said Bermudez. El Segundo police officers unsuccessfully attempted to catch up with the driver.