HEMET: Officers recover stolen Mercedes Benz after owner locates, follows own vehicle
HEMET – Officers detained a woman after she allegedly hopped into a Hemet resident’s Mercedes Benz and drove off in it Thursday evening, April 27. The car was stolen while it was sitting in the owner’s driveway.
Officers speak with a woman who was detained after being stopped while driving a stolen car. Will Whelan/Hemet Valley Incidents photo
Shortly before 10 p.m., City of Hemet emergency dispatchers were notified by a 911 caller that they were following their stolen vehicle after the owner of the Mercedes spotted the car being driven in the area of S. Lyon and W. Thornton Avenues.
The owner of the car followed the vehicle thief from a safe distance for several blocks until Hemet police officers were able to intercept the stolen Mercedes in the area of Sanderson Avenue and Mustang Way.
After the driver of the stolen car turned westbound onto Mustang Way, Hemet police officers initiated a felony traffic stop on the vehicle on Mustang Way at Morgan Hill Road.
During the stop, officers called the sole female occupant from the car at gunpoint and she was detained for further investigation without incident.
It was not immediately known if officers arrested the driver, who was not identified by name or age. An online jail records search the day after the incident did not show any adult females being booked into any Riverside County jails related to the incident.
After Hemet police officers recovered the stolen vehicle, they released the vehicle back to its owner.
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Trevor Montgomery runs Riverside County News Source and Shasta County News Source. Additionally, he writes for Riverside County based newspapers, Valley News and Anza Valley Outlook and writes for Bonsall/Fallbrook Village News in San Diego County.
Trevor spent 10 years in the U.S. Army as an Orthopedic Specialist before joining the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in 1998. He was medically retired after losing his leg and breaking his back in an off-duty accident.
During his time with the sheriff’s department, Trevor worked at several different stations, including Robert Presley Detention Center, Southwest Station in Temecula, Hemet/Valle Vista Station, Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center and Lake Elsinore Station, along with other locations.
Trevor’s assignments included Corrections, Patrol, DUI Enforcement, Boat and Personal Water-Craft based Lake Patrol, Off-Road Vehicle Enforcement, Problem Oriented Policing Team and Personnel/Background Investigations. He finished his career while working as a Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Investigator and was a court-designated expert in child abuse and child sex-related crimes.
Trevor has been married for more than 26 years and was a foster parent to more than 60 children over 13 years. He is now an adoptive parent and has 13 children and 12 – soon to be 13 – grandchildren.
Trevor, am I correct in that this woman didn’t get charged? Was she released? Why wasn’t she charged?
I have no idea…but if she wasn’t arrested, there must have been some mitigating circumstances.
The call originally came out as two black males driving the stolen car, while the victim(s) followed. Somewhere between the initial call and the actual stop – which didn’t happen for 5, maybe 10 minutes because all available officers were already busy on calls – the two black males, somehow changed to the solo female driver. So it is possible the two men realized they were being followed and pulled the ol’ switcharoo, perhaps bamboozling the young gal into taking the car. She might have been set up or just tricked. Or she could have been a juvenile. She did appear to be young.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t verify any of that other information in time for the article, so I left all that extra, un-verified stuff out, so as not to speculate or pass on potentially wrong information.
-TM