Police Chase Driver Across Southern California Until She Escapes Into Mexico

A woman stole a minivan on Monday and led police on a chase for hours across Southern California, swerving around spike strips and reaching speeds up to 90 miles per hour before escaping across the Mexico border.

The woman drove a stolen 2004 gray Toyota Sienna minivan more than 150 miles south across four counties before the police gave up the chase, according to the authorities, allowing her to to cross into Mexico.

It was early Monday morning when Nicolle Walters, 45, realized her 2004 gray Toyota Sienna minivan and car keys were missing from her residence. She runs a home for women seeking to recover from alcohol abuse in Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Ms. Walters said in an interview that one of the residents of the home had taken the van.

Police from Thousand Oaks and the nearby city of Moorpark tracked the vehicle to Simi Valley, about 11 miles north, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Deputies tried to force the van to stop there, but it drove away and onto State Route 118 at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, the statement said.

Deputies chased the vehicle for about 19 miles until it turned south on Interstate 405. The California Highway Patrol then took over the pursuit, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said, following the minivan as it cut through Los Angeles and sped toward Orange and San Diego counties.

Video of the pursuit broadcast by local TV stations showed the minivan swerving around other vehicles and dodging spike strips thrown in its path.

The driver managed to drive across the border into Mexico, said Ms. Walters, who confirmed with the driver’s mother that she was safe.

The California Highway Patrol had called off its pursuit of the van as it approached the border because of safety concerns, Sgt. Esteban Hernandez of the C.H.P. told The Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Walters called the events “super unfortunate” but said she was relieved that the driver was “safe and nobody got hurt.”

“The van is insured and hopefully we’ll be able to get it back to the United States,” she added.

Car chases are a Southern California staple: The Los Angeles Police Department was involved in over 1,000 last year, more than enough to keep full-time helicopter teams busy at major local news stations. More than 30 percent of those pursuits resulted in crashes, according to data from the L.A.P.D.