Police arrest man after brief chase

Deepa Bharath

COSTA MESA -- Police arrested a 21-year-old Oceanside man Monday

afternoon after a car and foot chase near South Coast Plaza, officials

said.

The chase lasted fewer than 10 minutes but resulted in two collisions,

police said. No one was hurt in the series of incidents.

The pursuit began when police followed Donnell Dwayne Diego from the

Sears store at South Coast Plaza after the store alerted security that

they suspected he was using fake or stolen credit cards, said Costa Mesa

Police Lt. Dale Birney.

At the parking lot, Diego hopped into a gold Pontiac Trans Am while

another unidentified man drove, Birney said.

Officers followed the car, which circled a neighborhood near Bristol

Street and Sunflower Avenue, he said. At one point, the getaway car

collided with another vehicle, but nobody was hurt and the other car

suffered only minor damage, Birney said.

Police then followed Diego and his companion as they drove into Sanwa

Bank’s parking lot on Bristol Street and crashed into a planter, he said.

Then the men got out of the car and ran into a nearby apartment

complex. Diego threw a loaded handgun on the roof of a carport as he

continued to run, Birney said.

Police officers, however, caught up with him and took him into

custody, but the unidentified driver of the vehicle got away and has

still not been caught.

“We don’t know if he is armed and dangerous,” Birney said. “It is

possible he is armed.”

Birney added that he did not have information about whether Diego was

successful in using the credit cards at Sears.

Diego will be charged with multiple counts of credit card fraud,

commercial burglary, possession of a handgun and evading arrest, police

said.

He is being held in Costa Mesa jail with bail set at $50,000. Diego is

scheduled to be arraigned today at the Harbor Justice Center.