Khianna Reynolds (exploretalent.com)
Khianna Reynolds (exploretalent.com)
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It’s not the Hollywood big break many people hope for when they move to California, but a wannabe model from New Jersey became a 6 o’clock news and YouTube sensation after an outrageous police chase through Los Angeles.

The 30-year-old East Orange resident now has been charged with leading Los Angeles police on a 20-mile pursuit in a stolen vehicle — and then trying to steal the police car that had given chase.

Khianna Reynolds stole the Toyota Tacoma from a woman who had been unloading groceries from in on Sunday, the Los Angeles County prosecutor alleges, before leading cops on a sometimes-harrowing and sometimes-meandering chase from Sherman Oaks to Chatsworth.

During the chase, which a news helicopter pilot described as "super wild," the driver barreled through medians and grass.

At one point, the driver went the wrong way on a one-way street and ended up in a cul-de-sac. Instead of a U-turn, she escaped by driving through somebody's lawn to get to the other side.

At the end of the chase, the video shows her getting out of the stolen SUV with her hands in the air — surprising the TV news announcers who assumed the driver was a man.

But then, prosecutors say, she attempted to steal an LAPD Ford Explorer. She had to be tackled by six police officers, the video shows.

Reynolds was charged Tuesday with carjacking, grand theft auto, driving or taking a vehicle without consent, fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle while driving recklessly and attempted driving or taking of a law enforcement vehicle without consent — all felony charges in California. She also faces misdemeanor counts of hit-and-run driving resulting in property damage.

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