Video shows a car crashing into a house during a police chase in South LA, then starting a fire

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Part of a South Los Angeles apartment building went up in flames Saturday when a driver crashed into the building during an early morning police chase.

The accident and fire were reported around 1:50 a.m. in the 200 block of East 23rd Street, just east of Main Street, and were captured entirely on surveillance camera video.

The driver was reportedly traveling so fast that the four-door sedan with four passengers jumped the curb and was briefly thrown into the air before crashing into the living room of a first-floor apartment. The vehicle then caught fire, causing flames to spread to the rest of the building.

According to investigators, there were people in the apartment at the time of the incident, but they were all on the upper floor.

No one was injured, but the fire forced everyone to rush outside.

“We thought it was another car accident because car accidents happen a lot,” said Kevin Tinoco. “We had just had one the night before… so we ran downstairs to see where the accident had hit and what car it had hit. It was our living room and the accident was all the way inside.”

“We were like, ‘What’s going on?'” Rose Tinoco said. “There was smoke everywhere. We saw guys trying to run out of the car and then we heard the cops say, ‘Stop! Hands up!’ We were like, ‘What’s going on?'”

All four people in the car were arrested by police and the driver was arrested for fleeing from a crime. By the time firefighters arrived, the flames had already spread to the second floor of the apartment.

The car was eventually removed, but the apartment was too badly damaged for the Tinocos to return home.

The incident remains under investigation.