Police arrested a man who allegedly tried to make off with a woman’s handbag but was stopped after she leapt into his car and grabbed his steering wheel as he drove off, while her husband blocked the man’s car with his own vehicle.
Apple Daily reports that the incident took place around 1:50pm yesterday when a 43-year-old woman, surnamed Au, was picking her 3-year-old daughter up from school. She parked her van close to a gas station opposite the Tai Po Government Primary School on Tai Po Tai Wo Road and was waiting inside to hand a phone back to her husband.
Au’s husband arrived in a red BMW and parked his car in the middle of the road, while the suspect — a 43-year-old surnamed Ngan — parked his silver Nissan behind him.
As the couple got out of their cars to make the hand-off, Ngan got out of his Nissan, opened the door of Au’s car and allegedly took her handbag.
He was spotted by the couple and ran back to his Nissan, but Au gave chase and jumped into the driver’s seat with him. With both thief and victim in the driver’s seat, Ngan stepped on the gas and drove off with Au still in the vehicle, holding onto the steering wheel, with the car door wide open.
Dash-cam video posted onto a closed Facebook group shows Au’s husband — not to be outdone by his heroic wife — gets into his BMW and drives after the Nissan, eventually overtaking and cornering it against a median. Au can be seen grabbing her bag and leaving the car.
The newspaper reports that with the Nissan firmly trapped, Au’s husband got out of his car, opened the Nissan’s door, and pulled the key out of the ignition.
Speaking to reporters outside the hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries, Au said the thief tried to escape after being stopped, but motorists and passers-by stepped in to prevent him from getting away until police arrived.
“When it happened, my first reaction was, ‘If you’re leaving, I’m not gonna let you get away,'” she said.
“I saw he was trying to escape, and just grabbed onto the steering wheel; if I let go I would have died,” she said, adding that throughout the ordeal she was struggling to reach for the brakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pm_Bvn_D1c&frags=pl%2Cwn
Officers arrived at the scene at around 2pm and searched Ngan’s car, finding a hammer and someone else’s ID. Police also suspect he was using a fake license plate for the car.
Apple Daily reported that Ngan also had a samurai sword in his trunk, but police didn’t confirm that detail.
Police said in an email to Coconuts HK that the suspect was being held on suspicion of a number of crimes: car theft, careless driving, using false instruments, possessing a false instrument, possessing an offensive weapon, possessing tools used for theft, possessing someone else’s identity card, driving a vehicle without a license, driving a vehicle without third party insurance, and leaving an establishment without making payment for a service.
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