By TY PHILLIPS
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: November 14, 2003, 07:47:56 AM PST
Remember those high-speed chase scenes from the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies?
The ones where patrol cars smashed into each other, allowing Burt Reynolds' bandit character to escape?
Well, something sort of like that played out early Thursday on Highway 99. And, yes, the bandit -- a speeder -- got away.
Just before 1 a.m., California Highway Patrol officers Michael Brush and John Lemas were headed north in a marked patrol car when they clocked a speeder heading south at about 100 mph, spokesman Tom Killian said.
Brush, who was driving in the fast lane, slowed the car and started turning onto the center divider to make a U-turn, Killian said. He had not yet turned on his flashing lights.
Trouble was, Brush had caught the eye of Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy Jesus Sigala Jr., who also was out looking for speeders. He accelerated to catch up with the car, not knowing he was bearing down on a CHP unit, sheriff's Cmdr. Raul DeLeon said.
It was a standard marked CHP patrol car. It had reflector tape, stripped across the rear, with 3-inch high letters reading Highway Patrol.
Sigala swerved, but the left front of his patrol car struck the rear of the CHP unit in what was described as a minor collision. None of the officers involved was injured in the incident.
"I guess he just didn't see that it was our patrol car," Killian said. "He asked our officers if they had their taillights turned off, because some patrol cars are equipped like that. But ours are not."
In a collision report, Brush listed the primary collision factor as Sigala's unsafe speed for conditions.
"He saw taillights flying down the freeway at a high rate of speed, and he was going to try and catch up to them," DeLeon said. "By the time he's close enough to see that it's a CHP unit, he brakes and changes lanes and the crash happened.
"I'll have to reserve judgment until our own investigation is completed. The reality is they were both doing their jobs. It's unfortunate this happened, but it's fortunate no one got injured in this."
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