Police Need Help Catching 2 Men Who Stage Car Crash, Rob Seal Beach Woman

SEAL BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Police need the public's help with catching two men caught on camera staging a car crash and robbing a Seal Beach woman.

Security video showed Tuesday at about 8:45 p.m. in the parking lot of the Imperial Spa in Garden Grove, a gray Jaguar pulled up in front of the 69-year-old woman in a white car. Two men in the Jaguar then staged a minor traffic collision.

"She thought it was just a regular traffic accident," said Sgt. Mike Henderson of the Seal Beach Police Department.

He said the two men claimed they did not have their insurance information. Neither did she. They convinced her to let them follow her home.

But she had a bad feeling halfway there and stopped outside the Ayres Hotel on Seal Beach Boulevard in Seal Beach. As she got out to show her paperwork, the suspects went right for her car.

"The victim goes over to prevent him, and the second suspect grabs her," Henderson said.

One put her in a head lock to keep her from getting in the driver's seat, but she broke away. As she ran, he appeared to point something, possibly a gun, at her.

That was when the other man grabbed her purse from inside her car before he and his accomplice drove off in an older gray Jaguar sedan with a non-functioning right-rear brake light, police said.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact detective Jeff Gibson at (562) 799-4100, Ext. 1109, at the Seal Beach Police Department.

As burglaries and robberies are up across Orange County, some are wondering if this is the start of a new crime wave.

Police advised if you are suspicious about the other driver in a traffic collision, stay in your vehicle and call 911.