What We Know About The Donut-Spinning, Hollywood Chase Guys

Police chases are a dime-a-dozen in Los Angeles—but the two guys in a Mustang who led police through Hollywood in the rain (with the top down!) truly captured the imagination of the Southland on Thursday.

Police arrested 20-year-old Herschel Reynolds and 19-year-old Isaiah Young just after 3:30 p.m., as their wild chase ended on a residential street in South Los Angeles. The two were met by a huge crowd of fans and admirers, some of whom took selfies with them, before deputies moved in and took the men into custody.

While an arrest typically means it's the end of our collective interest in the chase, the Mustang chase has taken on a life of its own, especially as more details emerge about the peculiar pursuit. Here's what we know so far:

• Herschel Reynolds is a former tactical driver for the Marine Corps: On Friday, the Pentagon confirmed that Reynolds, the driver of the Mustang in the chase, was a former driver at Camp Pendelton. Reynolds served in the Marines for over two years as a private before he was "prematurely discharged," reports the L.A. Times. In a statement, Pentagon officials said "the character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps' expectations and standards."
  

• The chase ended in their neighborhood: The chase came to an end near the intersection of South Central Avenue and East 51st Street, where Reynolds and Young lived. It explains why they were met with such a large, friendly crowd as the two posted on the hood on the Mustang, waiting for sheriff's deputies to eventually arrive and take the two into custody.Their behavior seemed to catch a few people by surprise. "What in the world is wrong with these boys," Carla McKing, who lives at the address listed for one of the suspects, told the Times. "They just made a bad choice."

  Perhaps the familiar crowd also helped to resolve the incident without any conflict. "I asked them when police got here, do not resist," neighbor Narvie Lee Richmond told NBC 4. "Didn't want to see young black men getting killed."

• The two are suspected of burglary and stealing jewelry: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says that Reynolds and Young were accused of breaking into a home in Cerritos and stealing jewelry, leading to the police pursuit. We imagine they'll get a few more charges stacked up on top of the burglary from the chase.
  

• There's a crowdfunding campaign to bail them out: Some enterprising individual (or guy with too much time on his hands) has started a campaign on Indiegogo to bail out the "drop top bandits." Of course it veers into quasi-racist territory, with the ultimate goal of getting Reynolds and Young out so they can record a rap album. Naturally, the Indiegogo campaign paraphrases Donald Trump: "Let's make hip hop great again."As of this writing it has raised $20 in about a day.

• Herschel Reynolds' driving has gotten him in trouble with the law before: Shocking, right? The Times reports that Reynolds was booked on suspicion of reckless driving last year, but later had the charge dropped.

And once more, for good measure, here's Reynolds, spinning donuts on an overpass in Hollywood: