A woman in her late 20’s was hauled off to jail March 31 following a wild car theft attempt in the parking lot of the Twin Oaks Shopping Center on Kanan Road in Agoura Hills.
DOWN FOR THE COUNT–Three citizens hold the suspect on the ground waiting for deputies to arrive. “Do you know how many people you almost just killed?” one of the citizen Samaritans could be heard saying on a video. Courtesy TrafficNewsLA
At around noontime in the parking lot of the Ralphs center at Kanan and Thousand Oaks Boulevard the suspect tried to steal the purse of an adult female who was getting into her car. A scuffle ensued and the victim was knocked to the ground, Sgt. Stephen Horton from the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station said.
The suspect jumped into the woman’s car and attempted to escape from the crowded parking lot, but a locking device on the steering wheel made the vehicle inoperable. The woman still tried feverishly to drive away, crashing into half-a-dozen parked vehicles in the process and leaving strewn auto parts on the pavement.
“She collided with a car and hit a wall, and the last vehicle she struck disabled the car,” Horton said.
In a video taken at the time of the incident and obtained by TrafficNewsLA, a male bystander could be heard screaming at the driver and ordering her to “get out of the car, get out of the car!”
After the grey sedan was finally disabled the driver attempted to run away but was tackled by several Good Samaritan witnesses who held her to the ground.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested the woman on charges of vandalism, carjacking and assault with a deadly weapons weapon. She was booked at the Lost Hills station in Calabasas.
The woman who had her purse and car stolen was treated at the parking lot for minor injuries and released.
An investigation into the incident continues.
–John Loesing