Driver Flees Police, Hides in River Bottom

VENTURA — A reckless driver escaped police after a pursuit along crowded Ventura freeways Saturday morning, abandoning his car and startling vacationing campers as he ran through a campground and disappeared into thick brush in the Ventura River bottom.

An hourlong search that included a helicopter from the Sheriff’s Department, which hovered low over the dense tangle of shrubs, yielded no sign of the man, apart from the white tank top he discarded during the chase.

The man remained at large and unidentified Saturday evening, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.

“He’s out there somewhere,” said Sgt. R. Dickie, of the Ventura CHP office after emerging from the riverbed. “He could lay in there all night if he wanted to.”

The incident began about 9:25 a.m. when a reckless and possibly intoxicated driver was reported westbound on California 126 east of Ventura, police said.

Minutes later, near Wells Road, CHP Officer Sherry Reehl saw a man standing next to a car that matched the wanted vehicle’s description. As she pulled up, the man fled in the white Monte Carlo.

The man threaded through traffic at speeds up to 95 mph, almost hitting other vehicles or freeway guardrails more than a dozen times, police said.

The only crash that occurred, though, was at Telephone Road and East Main Street when another patrol car with sirens blaring attempted to run a red light to join the chase. The police car collided with another car, slightly injuring the vehicle’s two occupants.

Meanwhile, with Reehl and Dickie about to give up the chase, the man suddenly stopped at the side of the freeway next to the Ventura Beach RV Resort and leaped from his still-rolling vehicle.

Tumbling through some brush and into a gully, he surprised campers preparing breakfast and ran into the river bottom ahead of the following officers.

Police cordoned off the area and called in the helicopter, to no avail.

“Pretty wild,” said camper Mark Doyle of Los Angeles. “We got a little entertainment today.”