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Inset: Chanel Anderson (Osceola County Corrections). Background: Big Dan”s Car Wash in Kissimmee, Fla. (Google Maps).
A woman from Florida is currently in custody after taking a vehicle from a pregnant mother at a car wash and later causing a total loss, as reported by law enforcement officials in Florida.
Chanel Aisha Anderson, aged 33, faces charges of grand theft auto, criminal mischief, and resisting arrest without violence, based on the records from the Osceola County jail.
The event took place in the late morning at Big Dan’s Car Wash in Kissimmee, a city within the Orlando metropolitan area, on July 7. This information comes from a charging affidavit submitted by the Kissimmee Police Department and accessed by Law&Crime.
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An officer detailed a call about a vehicle theft that occurred when the victim was at the car wash just before 11 a.m.
“While searching for the stolen vehicle, I was stopped at the light at Thacker Avenue and Vine Street,” the affidavit reads. “I saw a white Hyundai Sonata matching the description of the stolen vehicle. I was not sure where the vehicle came from but I then saw it colliding with a gas tanker truck who was in the westbound lane. The vehicle then collided with a light pole.”
The court document continues to offer 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.
As the officer and the defendant continued to face off, the officer unholstered his Taser-like device, according to the affidavit.
Then the officer 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.
Eventually, with the help of other officers, the defendant was handcuffed, subdued, and arrested, the affidavit says.
The woman whose car was stolen recounted her perspective to local media.
“When they put the vehicle in reverse and I heard the tires screeching and it was, like, an aggressive move,” the owner of the car, Hellen Mendez, told Daytona Beach-based NBC affiliate WESH. “I knew this wasn’t something typical or something like you would expect.”
In the charging document, Mendez told investigators she was about five feet away from her car – which she 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,” the affidavit reads. “Employees attempted to help her but the car drove at a high rate of speed.”
A witness on the scene corroborated the victim’s story.
“[H]e saw a subject walking very fast towards a customer’s vehicle,” the document goes on. “The subject then jumped into the vehicle and took it. [He] saw the victim yelling and screaming that the subject stole her car. The suspect drove at such a high rate of speed through the car wash and almost run multiple people over. The subject caused over $20,000 worth of damage to the car wash when she ran through it at such a high rate of speed.”
Mendez, a single mother of two, with her third child very much on the way, has been financially devastated by the incident.
And even the little things are hard now.
“I had diapers in my vehicle at the time of the accident,” she told the TV station. “Of course, me being a desperate single mom. I tried to salvage what I could from those diapers, but there were shards of glass in the diapers.”
A GoFundMe has been established to help her weather the storm.
“I am 32 weeks pregnant,” the fundraiser reads. “As a pregnant woman nearing the end of my third trimester, the emotional and physical impact of this incident is overwhelming. The sense of violation, fear, and helplessness I felt in that moment, and still feel now, is difficult to put into words.”
Anderson is currently being detained the Osceola County Jail on $5,000 bond. She has been ordered to have no contact with the victim.