Update: Former Berkeley gang member arrested after chase
Neighbors heard "a large boom that shook their house and found a two- to three-car pileup with multiple officers responding," one man said.
Update, March 4: Monday night's police chase began after a driver brandished a gun at a motorcycle rider at a red light near UC Berkeley, authorities report.
Police say a man in his 20s had stopped at the light in the 2500 block of Durant Avenue, in the Southside neighborhood near Cal, when a driver "pulled up alongside him and pointed a firearm at him" at about 6:50 p.m.
The rider — who reportedly asked the driver, "What's the point?" — called police and was able to describe the suspect and his car, a black sedan with Washington plates.
BPD then used its Flock camera system to track the car in the city after the driver headed west on Bancroft Way.
The Channing Way arrest scene Monday night, March 3, 2025. Ariel Nava Photo
Minutes later, a BPD officer spotted the car on Bancroft near Shattuck Avenue and tried to pull it over, according to police and radio traffic reviewed by The Scanner.
The driver was speeding and "blowing stop signs" as he fled from police, according to radio traffic.
When the driver crossed Martin Luther King Jr. Way, he collided with concrete lane dividers in the roadway and "multiple parked cars," BPD said.
BPD quickly took the driver into custody at the scene, identifying him as 50-year-old Gregg Fite, a Berkeley native and former Waterfront gang member who testified last year at the Joe Carroll Jr. murder trial.
Berkeley police also recovered a loaded Glock pistol during Fite's arrest.
Fite was arrested on suspicion of multiple felonies, including being a felon in possession of a loaded firearm, assault with a firearm and felony evasion.
As of Tuesday morning, he had already bailed out of custody, according to booking records online.
BPD said a booking photograph was unavailable at this time.
Original story: Berkeley police remain at the scene Monday night after a report of a man who brandished a gun and then fled from officers who tried to pull him over, according to early reports.
The arrest took place in the 1800 block of Channing Way, just west of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, at about 7 p.m.
One local resident said neighbors heard "a large boom that shook their house and found a two- to three-car pileup with multiple officers responding" to the scene.
Photographs from the block indicated that at least one other car was damaged in the crash.
At least one neighbor got an alert on their phone warning of a man in a black car who had brandished a gun, the local resident said.
Berkeley police indicated that officers had gotten a Flock license plate reader hit about the car the man was driving before the crash.
The Scanner is working to gather more details and will update this story as they become available.
