Police say they hitched a welding trailer to their truck and then took police from Livermore through San Jose and Sunnyvale before ending in East Palo Alto. During the chase at one point, one of the men jumped out of the moving truck off University Avenue, and bolted into the Ikea parking lot.
At East Bayshore Road and Clark Avenue is where the pickup truck finally came to a rest.
"We don't really get a chance to rest on the holiday because the crooks don't take a day off either," said Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson.
The suspected crooks in this case are three men and a woman, ages 23 to 40, who were crowded in a white pickup truck. Authorities say they stole a welder's trailer from a crew repairing the windmills at Altamont Pass and hitched it to their ride. Livermore police first pursued them, then the CHP took up a slow-speed chase through three Bay Area counties.
"They stayed in the right lanes going between 60 and 65 mph and due to the light traffic because of the holiday, we let it go ahead, so that we could make sure that the public was safe as well as our safety," said CHP Officer Amelia Jack.
The pickup headed on Highway 680 through Fremont. Investigators say one of the suspects threw a gun out the window which was later recovered. Then the driver took Highway 101 north through San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View. At University Avenue in East Palo Alto, one man bailed out of the truck and tried to escape into the Ikea parking garage.
"He was pretty much captured immediately," said Jack.
Everyone else gave up a short distance away, this mother and daughter saw the pursuit come to an end.
"As they came around here they stopped them at this midpoint and blocked them that's when all the commotion started. They got them out of the car and it was really crazy," said witness Alicia Kirton.
The suspects were handcuffed, patted down, and taken into custody.
"We did find another gun that was in the truck and a pound of marijuana and some indicia indicating that there was sales going on," said Nelson.
Nelson says two of the suspects taken into custody were on parole.
