June 17 (UPI) — A trio of juvenile cadets at the Los Angeles Police Department have been arrested after, officials say, they stole three patrol cars and other police items.
Police said they arrested the three teens, a 15- and 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, after they crashed a pair of stolen cruisers while leading police on two separate car chases through the streets of Los Angeles.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said the department first became aware the cruisers had gone missing on Wednesday around 5 p.m. and the investigation “almost immediately” focused on the 16-year-old female cadet after officials found video of her filling one of the vehicles with gas at a city pump.
At about 9:30 p.m. police located the two stolen cruisers next to each other on the streets of South Los Angeles, as the teens fled in both vehicles and eventually split up leading police on two chases.
“One of the pursuits terminated when the pursuit vehicle was involved in a traffic collision … The second pursuit ended when the pursuit vehicle collided with a non-involved motorist,” Beck said.
Police said the teens were brought in for questioning following the arrest and one confessed to stealing a third patrol car, which they possibly had for weeks.
Police found the third car parked outside a residence near where the other two vehicles were found and recovered two stun guns and two police radios. One teen was also wearing an LAPD bulletproof vest at the time of the arrest.
During the investigation police checked the odometer of one of the patrol cars and found it had been driven more than 1,000 miles since it was last used for official business, the Los Angeles Times reported. Police also plan to examine data from the stun guns to determine if they were fired and for how long.
Beck said cadets are not allowed to drive patrol cars and the three teens modified their cadet uniforms to look more like a regular officer’s and may have impersonated an officer to manipulate the checkout system.
“They accessed our inventory system, logged in under a sergeant’s name that they knew and was on vacation, and impersonated him to cover their use of their vehicles,” he said.
Since the teens were arrested Beck said officials conducted a full inventory check of all police vehicles and firearms. All 1,800 vehicles are accounted for, Beck said, and no firearms were ever missing.
