4 Suspects Arrested on Range of Charges

Police cordoned off a Studio City neighborhood for several hours Wednesday, before arresting four men and seeking two others suspected of committing crimes ranging from car theft to residential burglary, authorities said.

Police were first called to the 4300 block of Whitsett Avenue at 11:20 a.m., after a resident became suspicious seeing several men cruising the area in a minivan, according to North Hollywood Det. Jim Gerardi.

When officers approached the vehicle, four men fled the van hoping to escape police in the upscale neighborhood that lies north of Ventura Boulevard and south of the Ventura Freeway, Gerardi said.

Officers immediately arrested two men and a search of the van turned up a gun and several empty pillowcases, the detective said.

Dogs and a helicopter helped track down the remaining suspects as police set up a perimeter bounded by Laurelgrove and Whitsett avenues on the east and west and Moorpark street and Valleyheart drive to the north and south, police said.

At about this same time another man, Tyrone Harris, 31, of Los Angeles, was approached by police, who spotted him in a red Nissan Pulsar that LAPD Pacific Division had reported stolen, Gerardi said.

“Harris took off, almost running over an officer,” Gerardi said. Twenty minutes later, he was stopped in Burbank where he was arrested and booked on suspicion of carjacking.

Harris, Gerardi said, was suspected in a number of other robberies in La Crescenta, Pasadena and Culver City.

The others--including Joseph Corson, 23, of Canoga Park, Alexander Hall, 26, of North Hollywood, and Brian Herrold, 24, of Palmdale--were booked on robbery charges.

Two other suspects remain at large.