A pursuit through Orange County ended Tuesday afternoon with a driver in custody after Irvine police say he tried to kidnap his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint before leading officers on a chase across two freeways. The suspect, identified as Philae Promise of Costa Mesa, now faces multiple charges, including kidnapping.
Police say the call came in around 2 p.m. after witnesses reported seeing a woman dragged toward a truck by a man who had a handgun pointed at her. According to officers, the man managed to get the woman inside the vehicle, but as he walked around to the driver’s seat, she climbed out through the front window and got away before the truck ever left the scene.
From there, the situation turned into a full pursuit. Officers tracked the suspect onto the 133 freeway, then over to the 5 freeway, where the chase stretched on for roughly 20 minutes, according to KTLA 5. That’s a long stretch of freeway driving for anyone, let alone someone trying to outrun a growing convoy of patrol cars.
What happened next is the kind of sequence that reminds you just how much training goes into ending these things safely. Officers deployed spike strips, then executed a PIT maneuver on the 5 freeway. Instead of stopping, the driver kept going, this time the wrong way, merging against oncoming traffic onto an on-ramp near Jamboree Road.
The Chase Takes a Dangerous Turn
Driving against traffic on a freeway on-ramp is about as risky as it gets, both for the suspect and for anyone else on the road at the time. Officers followed him onto Jamboree, eventually catching up near Jamboree and Main.
That’s where police used a second PIT maneuver, which finally brought the vehicle to a stop and allowed officers to take the suspect into custody without further incident.
For those unfamiliar, a PIT maneuver (Pursuit Intervention Technique) involves an officer nudging the rear of a fleeing vehicle at an angle, causing it to spin out and lose momentum. It takes a steady hand and good timing, and doing it twice in one pursuit says something about how determined this driver was to keep going.
A Pursuit That Started With an Attempted Kidnapping
It’s worth stepping back to appreciate what actually kicked this whole thing off. The woman’s decision to bail out through the front window while the truck was still parked likely changed the entire outcome of this incident.
Quick thinking under that kind of pressure isn’t something everyone can pull off.
What Comes Next
Promise is now facing multiple charges stemming from the kidnapping attempt and the pursuit itself.
As of the initial reporting, further charging details had not been released.