Crime Report: Minor traffic collision escalates into fracas
La Cañada Flintridge
Feb. 25
Battery: Gould Avenue at the Foothill (210) Freeway. A woman reported at 9:30 a.m. she had a minor traffic collision with another car. Both parties stopped at the area of impact to exchange information, and both had placed their respective documentation on top of the trunk of the suspect’s vehicle to photograph the information.
The victim said she also placed other personal belongings on the trunk lid, and that the suspect began looking through them. When she grabbed up all her items from the trunk and began to step away from the man, he became enraged and stepped forward after her, yelling at her.
The woman said he grabbed her upper arm and snatched her driver’s license from her with one hand as he used the other hand to knock away a cellphone she’d been holding. The man then took photographs of the woman’s driver’s license before handing it back to her. The victim retrieved her phone and got into her car.
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The man said he was going to pull into the Ralphs parking lot to wait for sheriff’s deputies and advised her to do the same. Shaken, she parked on Gould to keep away from the man. She reported the incident as a traffic report, saying she didn’t want to press charges against the man, although she’d received a superficial scratch during the fracas.
Later speaking with deputies, the man said none of what the woman reported had happened. A deputy observed that while being questioned further, the man appeared to get upset and began speaking very rapidly. No medical attention was sought by either party, and no real vehicular damage was reported.
Identity theft: 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard. A man told deputies that on Jan. 22, someone used his personal information to access the Chase savings account he shares with his wife and withdraw and transfer an unspecified amount of money. The man became aware of the fraudulent charge while checking his monthly bank statement. Deputies noted that the withdrawal/transfer was made to a Capitol One bank at an unknown location, and that details on an individual had been obtained.
Feb. 26
Grand theft, unlocked vehicle: 5400 block of La Forest Drive. A man reported that sometime between 9 p.m. the night before and 7:30 a.m. that day, someone stole the fog lights off his unlocked 2013 Mercedes GL450 and stole a checkbook from the center console of the car’s interior.
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Burglary: 1930 Foothill Boulevard. A man told deputies that around 4:30 p.m. he placed his belongings in the men’s locker room of the Crescenta-Cañada YMCA pool and locked it with his own padlock. He returned to the locker room about 30 minutes later and took a shower.
When he came back to his locker at 5:30 p.m., he found the door open and his pried-open padlock sitting on a nearby bench. Several items had been taken from inside the locker, including a wallet containing a driver’s license and several credit cards, an LG flip phone, cash, a key ring and a wristwatch.
In a quick search of the area, the victim found various personal items of his had been placed in adjacent lockers. When he later called his credit card companies to report the incident, the man learned two of the cards had been used at a nearby Ross Dress for Less.
When deputies visited the Ross store, a manager said the credit card numbers would be needed to obtain access to store surveillance footage that may have recorded the suspect and transactions.
Feb. 29
Petty theft, unlocked vehicle: Chevy Chase Drive at Foothill Boulevard. A woman said she’d left her 2008 Honda Civic parked in the driveway of her residence, unlocked, at around 6 p.m. the day before. When she returned to her vehicle at 8 a.m. the next day, she saw someone had ransacked its interior and taken her Star Wars R2-D2 phone charger and an unspecified amount of cash.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
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