Photo courtesy of Chris and Jose, Jurupa Valley residents
JURUPA VALLEY, Calif. — Never would two friends, Chris and Jose, think they’d ever capture something like this on their phones.
Chris and Jose want to be identified by just their first names. They said they were hanging out when a stream of police sirens passed by their house. They saw a car speeding in front of three police cars and a helicopter flying above.
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“There were three units at first that followed them and then a couple seconds after that, there were three more units and they didn’t have their lights on. A couple seconds after that, another three units are following right behind them,” Chris said.
Jose and Chris said they noticed smoke rising overhead and decided to get into their own car to film what they found.
“I’ve seen cars on fire on the freeway, but this was literally too close to home,” said Jose.
The flames and the car engulfed by the fire that Chris and Jose saw was the aftermath of a late night pursuit of a stolen vehicle. The pursuit started in Riverside when police ran the car’s license plates and saw the car was marked as stolen.
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The pursuit went on into Jurupa Valley and ended on Crestmore Avenue next to an RV park. That’s when police said the driver jumped the car over the curb, causing the rubber to fall off the wheels and drove onto the field on its rims.
Aerial footage shows just part of the 300 acres quickly before dawn, forcing evacuations and destroyed several structures. Police said the two suspects who fled the car before it caught fire were arrested.
“That whole thing was lit though. Yeah it was,” Jose and Chris said.
The friends said while they were out by the field, they helped a man hose his lawn and drove an elderly lady to a nearby shelter. Needless to say, Chris and Jose won’t forget this Halloween for a very long time.
