The high speed chase started just after 3:30 Sunday afternoon at Highway 41 and Tulare. It ended minutes later when the unidentified 20-year-old driver lost control and hit the homeless man at Jensen and HWY 99.
Action News has learned the man who was struck in this intersection has died.
Several witnesses said they did not hear or see the accident, but they did see the suspects running from officers.
The pursuit only lasted a few minutes, but it left behind major damage.
The Highway Patrol says an officer from the Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium tried to pull over the driver of a Dodge Charger after he ran a stop sign. The driver then led officers on a high speed chase.
As he sped down the Highway 99 off ramp at Jensen, he lost control. "As they got down to the bottom of the off ramp, there was a pedestrian on the corner. The vehicle, again, was out of control and struck the pedestrian," said Axle Reyes with the California Highway Patrol.
The 20-year-old driver had four teenage men in the car when he struck the man, and then crashed into a pickup truck.
The driver and a passenger jumped out of the car and ran off. Witnesses said the suspects ran through a gas station parking lot. One even tried to get into the Shell station but couldn't get the door opened fast enough.
Officers caught the two suspects and arrested them.
Friends of the man who was run over identify him as Donald Gordon.
Lupita Medina works in a near-by convenience store. She said Gordon was in her store several times a day. "He always said, 'Lupita, you need something call me.'"
Medina says this is the second time Gordon was hit by a car while panhandling.
Two of the passengers in the suspect car suffered minor injuries in the crash. The driver's charges include felony hit and run, driving under the influence and evading arrest.
