First published in the Sept. 3 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
Two suspects were arrested hours after a woman’s car was stolen at knifepoint in South Pasadena last week and she was left stranded in town, local police said.
A 73-year-old Alhambra woman told South Pasadena officers that two men accosted her and stole her car at 1:11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 26, while she was parked in the 1900 block of Huntington Drive and using her cellphone. One of the men opened her unlocked driver side door and, brandishing a knife, forced her out of the Lexus IS250 sedan, police said. They added that the second man entered the vehicle on the passenger side and both men drove off with the victim’s cellphone and purse in the car.
The woman said she was able to return home shortly afterward and contact police.
Patrol officers with the South Pasadena Police Department said that at 4:30 that morning they saw the woman’s car being driven north in the 600 block of Fair Oaks Avenue. As the officers tried to pull the driver over, they said, there was a brief “slow-speed pursuit” that ended in the 1300 block of Garfield Avenue.
The officers arrested a 20-year-old Los Angeles man and a 22-year-old Fontana man on suspicion of carjacking and also for alleged methamphetamine possession. As of the Review’s press deadline, the Fontana man was being held in the North County Correctional Facility on $100,000 bail, on account of outstanding carjacking warrants with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The L.A. man was not booked into a county jail, although Detective Ryan Hang with SPPD said in an email he remained in custody elsewhere.
Those with additional information are urged to contact the SPPD at (626) 403-7270 or leave an anonymous tip at (800) 222-8477.
