Suspect crashes stolen car on Ramon Road while evading police

A high-speed chase in Cathedral City ended with a major crash at Ramon Road and Cathedral Canyon Thursday afternoon.

“I’ve never seen a car go that fast on a city street in all my life,” said Debbie Winslow.

Winslow was pumping gas on Ramon and Date Palm when the white Mercedes flew by.

“Nailed a couple of cars way down there and just kept on going and I’m watching because it was going so fast then at Ramon I think there were a couple of cars waiting just causally to make a right hand turn, I mean plowed the hell out of them the bumpers went flying and just kept going, unbelievable, shocking,” said Winslow.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, deputies located a 2012 Mercedes that was reported stolen out of Rancho Mirage Thursday morning. The driver fled when deputies tried to pull the car over at I-10 and Bob Hope Drive.

The chase continued down Varner Road in Thousand Palms, then westbound on Ramon Road traveling upwards of 70 mph.

“Five minutes earlier I would have been sitting right in that intersection because I had just gotten gas,” said Winslow.

Douglas Etie wasn’t so fortunate, he was one of nearly a dozen cars hit during the 20 minute pursuit.

“Just going along and all of a sudden I thought something in the back of my car I had shifted because it just ‘shhhh’ and this car it must have been going 80 miles an hour and he swerved like this,” described Etie.

Eite was only sideswiped, others were run off the road. Three people were taken to the hospital with minor to moderate injuries.

“How do you avoid it, you are on the street and you are obeying the laws and someone decides to do that its unconscionable is the word that comes to my mind, what is going on in their mind that they are running and taking other people’s lives in their hands,” said Eite.

“It’s sad there are a ton of ambulances down that way,” said Craig Caddow.

Caddow’s employee was driving right next to the Mercedes when it finally stopped at Cathedral Canyon.

“Somebody rear-ended the guy behind him, that Mercedes ended up a foot to the left of him, that car and all of his debris was about a foot on the right of him, so we were very fortunate,” said Caddow.

The pursuit came to an end at Cathedral Canyon where the suspect crashed the stolen Mercedes.

Deputy Armando Munoz with the sheriff’s department said four suspects ran from the car but all of them were quickly taken into custody after searching the area.

“One suspect was arrested for weapons violations felonies warrants and he’s also a suspect in several residential burglaries,” said Munoz.

Deputy Munoz said a K9 assisted in the chase. One suspect sustained minor injuries from the K-9.

Cal Fire said four people were taken to the hospital with minor to major injuries from the traffic collisions; one of them was a suspect in the chase.

“They can run but it never works when they do a pursuit, I don’t care if it’s LA or where, you are going to get nailed, you are going to get caught someway somehow, thankfully nobody was on the street and liberality got hit because obviously they were not about to stop until they had to,” said Winslow.