25-year-old bystander killed when secondslong police chase ends in crash, CA cops say
In less than a minute, an arson suspect fled from police officers and slammed into an SUV, killing a woman, California authorities say.
Fountain Valley police said officers responded to a report of an arson at about 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2, according to a news release shared on the department’s Facebook page.
By the time officers arrived, the suspect had already left, police said.
Officers learned that due to “an ongoing domestic dispute,” the suspect doused a bush beside the home with lighter fluid and set it ablaze, police said.
The bush was engulfed in flames and spread to the home, police said, adding that the residents managed to put out the fire before officers arrived.
Officers found the suspect’s empty truck at a parking lot about a half-mile away, police said.
As they watched the truck, officers spotted him entering the vehicle and driving toward Brookhurst Street, police said.
As police cars began to close in on the suspect, he fled “at a high rate of speed” and officers chased him, police said.
Within less than a minute of fleeing from officers, the suspect’s truck collided with an SUV at an intersection after driving less than a mile, police said.
“The suspect ran the red light, at which point he collided with a white BMW occupied by three individuals,” Sgt. Henry Hsu with Fountain Valley police told KTLA.
The three SUV passengers were taken to a nearby trauma center, police said.
On the way there, one of the passengers, a 25-year-old woman, was pronounced dead, police said.
In an email to McClatchy News, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Matt Timmins said the woman has been identified as Hong Ngoc Nguyen, who was visiting from Vietnam at the time of the crash.
“In this case, officers were barely in a pursuit,” Hsu told KNBC. “Time was short, and the suspect gained an incredible amount of speed on his own, and unfortunately it ended in this fatality.”
The other passengers were “listed in critical and stable condition” as of Dec. 3, police said.
After the crash, officers took the suspect into custody, police said.
The suspect was also taken to a trauma center and was “in serious condition with non-life-threatening injuries,” police said.
Specific charges against the 43-year-old Huntington Beach man are pending, police said.
He is expected to be charged Dec. 5, an Orange County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson told McClatchy News in a Dec. 4 email.
Fountain Valley is about a 35-mile drive southeast from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 1:53 PM with the headline "25-year-old bystander killed when secondslong police chase ends in crash, CA cops say."
