According to Florida law enforcement, a woman is currently in jail after stealing and totaling a pregnant mother’s vehicle at a car wash.
Chanel Aisha Anderson, 33, is charged with one count each of grand theft auto, criminal mischief, and resisting arrest without violence, according to Osceola County jail records.
According to a charging affidavit filed by the Kissimmee Police Department and obtained by Law&Crime, the incident began late in the morning at Big Dan’s Car Wash in Kissimmee, a medium-sized city in the Orlando metro area, on July 7.
An officer described a call about a vehicle theft that occurred shortly before 11 a.m. while the victim was at the car wash.
“While searching for the stolen vehicle, I was stopped at the light at Thacker Avenue and Vine Street,” according to the witness statement. “I saw a white Hyundai Sonata that fit the description of the stolen vehicle. I am not sure where the vehicle came from, but I saw it collide with a gas tanker truck in the westbound lane. The vehicle then crashed into a light pole.”
The court document continues to provide the officer’s perspective.
I exited my patrol vehicle and approached the Hyundai to check on the driver. The driver appeared to be a black female waring a blue and white shirt, brown short pant and white shoes. She was slump[ed] over in the drivers seat. I did not see any other occupants inside the vehicle. I continued to ask units at the car wash from a suspect description and trying to determine if I was with the suspect and if this was the stolen vehicle. While standing in the passenger side, I asked the driver if she was okay. I then went to the driver’s side to check on her and she exited the vehicle. The driver began to yell at me, if I was going to shoot her. I asked the driver again if she was okay and she yelled that she wanted to fight with me.
According to the affidavit, as the officer and the defendant faced off, the officer unholstered his Taser-like device.
The officer then describes using the weapon twice against Anderson in response to her allegedly “aggressive” behavior, “close proximity” and “saying in an aggressive manner that she was going to fight me,” according to the court document.
The defendant was eventually handcuffed, subdued, and arrested by other officers, according to the affidavit.
The woman whose car was stolen shared her story with local media.
“When they put the vehicle in reverse, I heard the tires screeching, and it was, like, an aggressive move,” the car’s owner, Hellen Mendez, told Daytona Beach-based NBC affiliate WESH. “I knew this was not something typical or something like you would expect.”
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In the charging document, Mendez stated that she was about five feet away from her car, which she had left running, and was cleaning the mats when the theft occurred.
“The victim saw and unknown person walking towards her vehicle and then they got inside and drove off,” according to the statement of allegations. “Employees attempted to help her but the car drove at a high rate of speed.”
A witness at the scene corroborated the victim’s account.
“[H]e saw a subject walking very fast towards a customer’s vehicle,” the report continues. “The subject then jumped into the car and took it.
[He] witnessed the victim yelling and screaming that the subject had stolen her car. The suspect drove at high speeds through the car wash, nearly running over several people. The subject caused over $20,000 in damage to the car wash by driving through it at such a high speed.”
Mendez, a single mother of two who is expecting her third child, has been financially devastated by the incident.
Even the simplest tasks are difficult right now.
“I had diapers in my vehicle at the time of the accident,” she told the television station. “Of course, I am a desperate single mom. I attempted to salvage what I could from those diapers, but there were shards of glass in them.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help her weather the storm.
“I am 32 weeks pregnant,” the fundraiser states. “As a pregnant woman nearing the end of her third trimester, the emotional and physical toll of this incident is overwhelming. The sense of violation, fear, and helplessness I felt at the time, and continue to feel today, is difficult to express.”
Anderson is currently detained in the Osceola County Jail on a $5,000 bond. She has been ordered not to contact the victim.
