Moment pickup truck plunges off California wharf as driver, 21, attempts to flee cops who are left to rescue him and three others from the water before arrest

A California man has been arrested after driving off a Monterey wharf in an attempt to evade police during a high-speed drunk driving chase.

Martin Urroz, 21, of Fresno, was booked at the Monterey County Jail on multiple charges including driving under the influence of alcohol and evading a police officer.

Monterey Police Department officers were walking down Alvarado Street on Sunday when they spotted a green 1997 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck roaring around a corner, heading the wrong way on a one-way street.

As the truck turned onto Municipal Wharf II, a bustling pier teeming with restaurants, another MPD officer turned on his police cruiser's overhead lights to initiate a traffic stop.

The driver, later identified as Urroz, pulled to the right of the wharf and stopped. As the officer approached the vehicle on foot, the truck resumed driving, heading towards the end of the wharf 'at a high rate of speed,' according to police. 

A California man has been arrested after driving his pickup truck down a Monterey wharf and crashing into the ocean in a desperate bid to evade police

Martin Urroz, 21, of Fresno, was charged with driving under the influence of the alcohol after driving the wrong way down a one-way street, turning onto the pier and plunging into the ocean

According to police, the three other people in the car sustained minor injuries, while Urroz was taken to a local trauma center for treatment

Officers spotted the four occupants of the vehicle in the ocean and suspected they'd jumped in to evade police before realizing the Chevrolet Silverado was underwater

The officer called other officers for assistance and climbed back into his patrol car. He drove to the end of the wharf, where he suspected the truck was hiding behind a building.

Other officers arrived and parked their patrol cars to block the truck's exit. As they began to walk towards the end of the wharf, they heard calls for help from the ocean below.

Assuming the four people had jumped in to evade capture, police tossed flotation devices into the water and instructed them to hold on as they called fire rescue.

But when the pickup truck was nowhere to be found, police realized the truck had careened off the wharf and vanished underwater.

All four people were rescued from the water in a collaborative effort by MPD, the Monterey Fire Department and the United States Coast Guard.

Urroz was taken to the Natividad Trauma Center for treatment, while the three passengers only sustained minor injuries, police said. 

The scene was eerily reminiscent of an incident two months ago, when a car plunged off a 650-foot-long Virginia Beach pier in the early hours of January 27.

The scene mirrored an incident from earlier this year, when a 57-year-old man drove off the end of a Virginia Beach pier in a suspected suicide 

The driver roared down the 650-foot-long boardwalk and appeared to brake briefly before slamming through a wooden railing and into the ocean

The vehicle left a scene of destruction in its wake and appeared to nearly collide with a pedestrian

The medical examiner identified the driver as a Virginia Beach local, but declined to release his name 

The driver appeared to brake before plowing through a wooden railing at the end of the boardwalk, leaving a jumble of mangled barriers in its wake.

The moment the car toppled over the edge was captured by a witness filming from a nearby beach.

Footage taken from a different angle depicted the vehicle nearly colliding with a passenger.

Police released underwater video of the wreckage amid their investigation, showing the car rolled onto its roof at the seafloor.

The vehicle was pulled from the water days later, but the medical examiner declined to release the driver's name, noting only that he was a 57-year-old local to the area.

Virginia Beach police indicated the man likely died by suicide.

'While we cannot presume to fully know what motivated this individual’s actions, they do appear to have been deliberate,' the department wrote in a press release.