A wild chase with Redding Police ended in the Sacramento River early Sunday morning. At 3am an officer stopped a car for having false license plates on North Bonnyview. There were four people in the car, and they all seemed nervous. The driver gave a fake name and while the officer was calling the information in, the driver accelerated, almost hitting an arriving backup unit. A chase went all the way across town to the Turtle Bay Arboretum and onto the Sacramento River Trail, heading upriver through Caldwell Park. When it reached the boat ramp the two female passengers stayed in the car while the driver and the other male jumped in the river. They floated down to the diversion dam and the driver, identified as 38-year-old Michael Smith, swam to shore. After 20 minutes of negotiations Smith surrendered and got out of the water. A search for the other man involved a drone, a K9 and boats, but he was never found.
– Steve Gibson