3 Carjackings in 40 Hours Reported in Orange County

COSTA MESA —  Carjackers struck three times within 40 hours in Orange County this week, stealing cars at gunpoint in Huntington Beach, Orange and Santa Ana, but injuring no one.

Police said the victims, all of whom were also robbed, gave up their cars willingly, as authorities advise.

“If you’re confronted and someone sticks a gun in your face, don’t hesitate. Immediately give them the vehicle, your purse or whatever they want,” said Layna Bowdy, spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Bowdy said carjacking is “a crime of opportunity.” Thieves who use this method to steal cars are often planning to use the vehicle to commit a crime or to get away from a crime they just committed, she said.

Authorities said Tuesday that carjackings in Orange County have been on the rise in the last two years. A person driving an aging compact car is as much at risk as a driver behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz, they said.

“It’s the designer crime of the ‘90s,” said Lt. Timm Browne of the Orange Police Department.

The Huntington Beach attack took place at 4:25 a.m. Tuesday at an intersection where motorist George Cross was stopped at a red light. Three men approached his 1987 Plymouth Voyager, said police Sgt. Dennis Martin.

“One of the men displayed a handgun and ordered the man out of the vehicle,” Martin said. “They took his wallet and drove off in his car.”

On Monday night, a 24-year-old man’s 1984 Ford Mustang convertible was stolen at gunpoint in Orange.

The man, whom police did not identify, was confronted by four men in a parking lot at a condominium complex. One of the men was carrying a semiautomatic handgun.

“Two of the guys, including the gunman, physically lifted the victim out of his car and put him down on a nearby car,” Browne said. “They took his wallet, got into the car and drove off.”

That incident took place only blocks from the MainPlace/Santa Ana shopping mall where on Sunday a 16-year-old boy sitting in a car waiting for his mother was confronted by a carjacker.

The teen-ager, Bradley Scott Dobson of Chino, was not injured, but the carjacker, who was armed with a handgun, escaped with the family’s 1993 Lexus as well as the youth’s class ring.

Bowdy said that although carjackings are on the increase, the trend has not reached epidemic proportions.

“It’s not happening on every street corner,” she said. “People shouldn’t be terrified, but there has been a rise.”