GILROY
– A pair of suspected car thieves from San Jose led California
Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase early Tuesday
morning, starting on U.S. Highway 101 and ending in a Gilroy
resident’s yard.
GILROY – A pair of suspected car thieves from San Jose led California Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase early Tuesday morning, starting on U.S. Highway 101 and ending in a Gilroy resident’s yard.
Twenty-year-old Joseph Sanchez was high on methamphetamine and driving a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta – reported stolen from San Jose the day before – when CHP officers Kirby Sakamoto and Brent Hawley tried to pull him over for speeding at 2:40 a.m., on southbound 101 north of Leavesley Road, Hawley said.
Instead of stopping, Sanchez reportedly accelerated to 115 mph.
His chances of evading the patrol car might have improved if he had known Gilroy streets a little better, Hawley said. After exiting 101 at Monterey Street, Sanchez ended up at the western end of Luchessa Avenue, where the road dead-ends into a new housing development.
“He said later that he didn’t know Gilroy at all,” Hawley said.
While rounding a curve at high speed, Sanchez crashed into a parked Jeep Cherokee on Poppyfield Drive, doing moderate damage to the Jeep but major damage to the Volkswagen. He then got out and fled on foot, climbing over backyard fences and running through yards.
He fell into a backyard pool during his flight, but got out and fled until he fell into a bush, Hawley said. The officers caught him at 2:45 a.m.
Sanchez left a passenger in the car when he ran, 29-year-old Guadalupe Sandoval, also from San Jose. The collision temporarily knocked Sandoval unconscious, and he was later found to have head and arm injuries, Hawley said.
Sanchez was booked into the Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of possessing of a stolen vehicle, possessing a small amount of meth and hit-and-run causing injury, all felonies. The CHP is also pressing misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of meth, possessing drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest and driving with a license that had been suspended for a prior failure to appear in court for traffic violations.
Officers booked Sandoval into jail, on suspicion of possessing a stolen vehicle, after he was released from Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy.
