A man tried to steal a truck while its owner was still in it, led police on a sprawling chase through Los Angeles, shrugged off a PIT maneuver, avoided spike strips, and still managed to lose to a dog. It was, by any reasonable measure, not a well-executed plan. The incident unfolded on a Friday afternoon when a suspect approached Ronald Knesil in the parking lot of the China Cook restaurant in Fontana, California, first asking him for a ride. Knesil declined, turned toward the back of his own truck, and was promptly relieved of his keys in a manner he had not anticipated.
What followed was not a clean getaway. Knesil, by his own account, was not inclined to simply hand over his vehicle. He struggled with the suspect inside the cab for roughly ten minutes before the suspect managed to get the truck started, put it in reverse, and accelerate out of the lot hard enough that Knesil lost his footing and fell from the moving vehicle. The truck clipped a curb, took out a sign, and disappeared into traffic. Knesil was left with scrapes on his elbow and, presumably, a story he will be telling for a very long time.
Fontana Police picked up the pursuit almost immediately, which was the first piece of good news in an otherwise chaotic afternoon. The chase moved quickly onto the 10 Freeway, then the 101, at which point the California Highway Patrol took over as the suspect crossed into the greater Los Angeles area. From there, the route wound through the 5 Freeway southbound in East L.A., then onto the 710 southbound, covering a significant stretch of Southern California freeway in a stolen pickup truck. At various points during the chase, the suspect was observed driving on the wrong side of the road, navigating through congested surface streets, and making what witnesses described as hand signs through the window. None of this is standard driving behavior, even by Southern California standards.
Around 1:48 p.m., officers attempted a PIT maneuver at South Boyle Avenue and East 8th Street, and also tried to box the truck in. The suspect managed to get away anyway. A subsequent spike strip deployment came up empty as well. At that point, the tools that typically close out a pursuit had been tried and found wanting, and the truck was still moving. It would take a quieter, furrier solution to finish the job.
When the PIT Does Not Pit
The Precision Immobilization Technique is one of the more reliable tools in law enforcement’s pursuit-ending toolkit, but it is not foolproof. According to California Highway Patrol training guidance, the technique depends on finesse rather than force, with the goal being a contact gentle enough that the fleeing driver barely registers it before the vehicle spins out.
Officers are typically trained on closed courses at speeds between 25 and 40 miles per hour, and the maneuver is considered most effective when there is little traffic, no nearby pedestrians, and an open road to work with. A congested urban freeway environment is not exactly the ideal testing ground.
When a PIT attempt fails, as it did here, the situation does not get simpler. Research on officer-involved pursuits has found that roughly 34 percent of chases end with the suspect crashing on their own, which is worth knowing but not particularly actionable when you are behind the wheel of a patrol car on the 710. What the data does support is that there is no single guaranteed termination method, and experienced pursuit officers know this well.
A Long Route Through a Familiar Playbook
The jurisdictional handoff in this chase followed a pattern that anyone who has watched a Southern California pursuit will recognize. Local police departments initiate contact, but once a fleeing vehicle hits the freeway system and crosses into CHP territory, the state agency takes the wheel on coordination.
It is a reasonably smooth system in practice, though the sheer size of the Los Angeles freeway network means a determined driver can cover a lot of ground before anyone gets close enough to end things.
The route from Fontana to Lynwood spans roughly 40 miles as the crow flies, though freeway loops tend to add mileage in a hurry. By the time the suspect finally exited onto surface streets in a residential Lynwood neighborhood just after 2:20 p.m., the pursuit had wound through multiple freeway systems and at least two jurisdictions, consuming the better part of an hour.
The Dog Closes It Out
As the suspect began slowing down near Wright Road and Fertile Street, officers moved in to box the truck. One CHP officer managed to get ahead of the vehicle to attempt a spike strip deployment, but the truck slowed enough that it became a non-factor. When the suspect finally stopped and stepped out of the truck with his hands up, it looked for a moment like a straightforward surrender. Then he started jogging.
That decision brought a K-9 into the picture, and the foot portion of the pursuit was brief. The suspect was taken into custody and later loaded into an ambulance, reportedly due to injuries from the K-9 contact. The details of those injuries were not disclosed.
The Owner Gets to Watch His Truck on TV
Back in Fontana, Ronald Knesil had spent the afternoon watching the chase unfold on television, which is an unusual way to monitor the whereabouts of your own vehicle but proved effective under the circumstances.
He told reporters that he had no intention of giving the truck up without a fight, and his ten-minute struggle inside the cab before being thrown clear makes that abundantly clear. The truck did sustain some damage from the PIT maneuver attempt during the chase, but Knesil expressed optimism about getting it back.
He also took the time to credit the Fontana Police Department for their rapid response, which under the circumstances seems entirely fair. The investigation into the incident remains ongoing, and formal charges had not been announced at the time of this report.