A six-hour traffic-stopping police chase on Highway 91 began with a Corona police investigation of a man accused of violating a domestic violence retraining order and ended with his roadside suicide.
Efrain Quezada, 40, of La Puente, was being investigated by the Corona Police Department days before Friday's chase, the police corporal said. Tobias Kouroubacalis.
Corona officers were actively searching for Quezada, who was charged with stalking, making criminal threats and violating a domestic violence restraining order.
When officers encountered Quezada on Friday around 8:05 a.m., they attempted to conduct a traffic stop in the area of McKinley Street and Griffin Way in Corona, but he refused to stop.
Instead, he led officers on a chase on the west side of Highway 91 for about 15 minutes before stopping his blue four-door sedan in the middle of the road.
The Anaheim and Corona police departments used their armored vehicles to enclose the sedan so it could not move the car.
“Almost all the time, [Corona Police crisis negotiators] We were on the phone with him, from time to time, trying to negotiate a peaceful surrender,” Kouroubacalis said.
Both sides of the highway were closed for about six hours due to the standoff. The California Highway Patrol ordered the motorists behind the standoff to get off the freeway.
The negotiation process was unsuccessful and Quezada ended his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound around noon, Kouroubacalis said.
Traffic on the east side of Highway 91 began flowing again around 12:45 p.m., but the west side remained closed until 3:48 p.m. as the Orange County Coroner's Office and forensic team conducted their investigation. , according to Caltrans District 12's account on social media platform X.
During the confrontation, police vehicles created a barrier between Quezada and the kilometer-long line of waiting drivers.
Kouroubacalis said he is aware that people were complaining about traffic.
“Our response to this is that if it was your family member or friend, you would want us or any law enforcement agency to make reasonable efforts to get you out of the car peacefully,” he said.
“We did everything we could to get him to comply voluntarily and get out of the car, but it just didn't work,” Kouroubacalis said.
