A Davis man was jailed Thursday after allegedly leading police on a high-speed pursuit from Woodland to Sacramento with a woman and toddler inside his car.
Larry Ventimiglia, 25, was taken into custody shortly after 2 p.m. in a residential area of Natomas, where officers from Yolo and Sacramento counties, as well as the California Highway Patrol, searched for him following the chase, Woodland police Sgt. Darren Imus said.
Imus said the incident began with a 1:10 p.m. phone call to police from a woman who reported that Ventimiglia had threatened to shoot and kill her at the Del Valle Super Mercado on Kentucky Avenue in Woodland. Ventimiglia had fled the scene by the time officers arrived, but the victim said they could find him driving a white Saturn.
As the investigation was under way, an officer patrolling the area of North and Fourth streets in Woodland spotted Ventimiglia, who allegedly led officers on a pursuit through both residential and industrial areas of Woodland — at time reaching speeds over 90 mph — before taking the chase onto southbound Interstate 5 toward Sacramento.
There, the pursuit speeds exceeded the 100-mph mark until Ventimigila’s car collided with another vehicle near the Arena Boulevard exit. The suspect then fled from the car — leaving a 25-year-old woman and her 2-year-old child inside the crashed car — and ran westbound across I-5 into a residential area of Natomas, Imus said.
Meanwhile, a Woodland police officer whose patrol car skidded off the roadway and into a ditch near the end point of the pursuit chased Ventimiglia on foot while assisting officers from the Yolo and Sacramento County sheriff’s departments, the Sacramento Police Department and the California Highway Patrol set up a perimeter.
Officers found Ventimiglia hiding near a home in the 3400 block of Beretania Way and took him into custody, Imus said. The female passenger in his car told officers she was an acquaintance of Ventimiglia and an unwilling participant in the pursuit.
Neither she nor her child was injured, Imus said.
Ventimiglia was lodged at the Yolo County Jail, where he faces charges of kidnapping, terrorist threats, child endangerment, evading police and violating his probation from an earlier conviction, Imus said. He is being held without bail.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene