Rolls-Royce Driver Escapes Police Chase by Hiding In a Tunnel Like It’s ‘Grand Theft Auto’
Police eventually called off the search, and the $500,000 Rolls and its alleged thief are still MIA.
It’s happened, everyone. A combination of Need for Speed and Grand Theft Auto police evasion tactics actually worked in real life for the alleged thief of a Rolls-Royce Phantom in Los Angeles. Using the cunning and skill that could only be honed during endless hours of playing Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the intrepid driver of the stolen Rolls escaped a police pursuit by ducking into an underground parking garage in downtown LA Wednesday afternoon.
The pursuit began 10 miles north in the Pasadena area before working its way down the SR-110 freeway. According to KABC, the owner of the Phantom had been tracking the $500,000 car and given the information to the California Highway Patrol. After the suspect performed several dangerous high-speed maneuvers on the freeway, CHP officers in pursuit decided to back off. This allowed the police helicopter to track the pursuit from a distance while allowing the suspect to potentially crash in a more congested, low-speed environment.
By the time the pursuit reached downtown with a five-star wanted level, the driver of Rolls was desperate to escape, cutting across busy intersections and almost colliding with several cars and pedestrians. Their diagonal path through downtown made little sense until they finally made their ultimate move and hid underneath Grand Avenue in the heart of LA. For Angelinos, it’s a famous and familiar location for photos and movies, and sees little use as an actual road. For the driver of the Rolls, it was clearly their getaway plan as it shielded them from the helicopters. This structure contains several parking garages and features many walkable escape routes.
Because the patrol cars had pulled back so far, it was several minutes before CHP patrol cars could get a closer look at where the big Rolls went. By the time police reached the scene where the car disappeared, it's likely that the suspect had enough time to escape by foot. Shortly afterward, the pursuit was called off. As of this writing, neither the Rolls-Royce nor the driver of the car have been found.
While you should never run from the police, much less attempt to escape pursuit, the driver of the stolen Rolls-Royce did it like the video games and hid in a tunnel. That’s a hell of a Wednesday afternoon if I’ve ever seen one.
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