Cathedral City Man Suspected Of Trying To Carjack Driver Across Street From Placentia Police Station

PLACENTIA (CBSLA.com) — A 33-year-old man is in custody Wednesday for allegedly trying to carjack a driver after stealing a bicycle from a woman in an attempt to flee police.

Nicholas Edward Ashbaugh, of Cathedral City, was arrested on suspicion of robbery, attempted carjacking and resisting arrest and is being held on $100,000 bail, Placentia police spokesman Lt. Eric Point said.

Officers were initially dispatched to an IHOP Restaurant at 131 N. Kraemer Blvd. -- across the street from the police department – at about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday to respond to a male causing a disturbance. A lieutenant and sergeant responded immediately from the station and tried to detain the man, but he fled the officers' order to stop and fled on a bicycle, Point said.

The man crashed the bicycle in front of a vehicle stopped at Kraemer and Chapman Avenue, then tried to carjack the drive by force, but officers arrived and arrested him, Point said.

Point said it was later determined that Ashbaugh had stolen the bicycle earlier in the evening by knocking a woman off it in the 600 block of Longfellow Drive.

Ashbaugh is scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday.