4 Teenage Girls Are Arrested in Car Chase

The evening, police say, began innocently enough.

A 24-year-old Long Beach man was making a midnight trip to the pharmacy when he noticed four teenage girls waving at him on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Junipero Avenue, said Long Beach police spokeswoman Karen Kerr.

Concerned that they might be stranded, Kerr said, the man asked if they needed a ride.

Sure, the girls replied, to a party in Lynwood.

The man didn’t want to go to Lynwood. And that, Kerr said, is when one of the girls drew a gun.

Police on Monday were still sorting out precisely what happened next. The names of the girls, ages 14 to 17, were not released because of their ages, and the victim has asked police to keep his identity a secret, Kerr said.

Here, police say, is what happened:

After one of the girls drew a gun, they climbed into the man’s car. The man drove to a nearby 7-Eleven, which he entered alone, withdrawing cash from an ATM and returning freely to the car--although it is still unclear why, Kerr said.

Then one of the girls took the wheel, driving to South Gate and going through a police sobriety checkpoint.

As the South Gate police began a pursuit, the girls tossed the gun and the man out of the car after taking about $60 from him, Kerr said. (The man was not hurt.) They got on the southbound Harbor Freeway, going about 75 mph, then turned around and began heading north, with the California Highway Patrol joining the pursuit.

The car smashed into the side of the freeway at C Street, Kerr said, and the uninjured girls were booked on suspicion of robbery. The firearm turned out to be a BB gun.