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Police Chase

The city I call home is famous today. Unfortunately, it is only due to a crime. Yesterday, my brother and sister-in law were entering and then driving southbound on a local highway to the California State Fair when we saw a cavalcade of police vehicles racing on the opposite side of the freeway and exiting at the street which we had just left.

This street, Hammer Lane, was part of a police chase to stop and apprehend three suspects who had robbed a Bank of America. The suspects exited the bank with three hostages--a customer and two employees--so close to their bodies, and with AK-47-style guns pointed at the heads of the hostages, that police who had already arrived could not get close. The suspects then left the scene in a blue, employee-owned S.U.V. and led police on a chase from Stockton to Lodi (about twenty minutes north of Stockton) and back near the same location they had left.

Toward the end of this chase, the suspects threw two of the three hostages from the vehicle (the hostages may instead have jumped out). Police having shot the tires of the S.U.V., the suspects were forced to stop at an intersection, and a shootout ensued for what one witness stated was five minutes of continuous exchanged gunfire. At its end, police found the final hostage (the customer) killed, along with one of the suspects. The remaining two suspects were also shot. One died later, and the other is in custody. Thankfully, the two hostages thrown from the vehicle survived and are currently in the hospital recovering.

I have never seen this many police vehicles in my life. Included were countless police cruisers, a S.W.A.T. vehicle, and what appeared to be an undercover S.U.V. The vehicles simply continued coming. It would not be an overstatement to claim that all officers on duty in this city of nearly 300,000 (as of 2012) were involved in this chase. The event appeared on both local and national stations. It is unfortunate that this adds to the already-poor reputation our city has of being dangerous and crime-ridden.

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