Gilroy – Police snapped handcuffs around the wrists of a
would-be carjacker Wednesday night, only a half-hour after his
failed crime.
Gilroy – Police snapped handcuffs around the wrists of a would-be carjacker Wednesday night, only a half-hour after his failed crime.
Nineteen-year-old Joseph Ramon Perez, a Gilroy resident, used a gun to threaten the lone passenger in a stopped car at the intersection of Third Street and Westwood Drive. Perez walked up and tried to open the driver’s side door, police say, but the door was locked, and the driver sped away, unharmed. No shots were fired.
Perez pulled on a ski mask before approaching the car, but had already walked past the driver, bare-faced, before he did so. That made it easy for the victim to identify him less than a half-hour later, when an officer stopped Perez near the intersection of San Miguel and Santa Paula streets.
When officers stopped Perez, he had a ski mask. Two air pistols, similar to BB guns, were found nearby. Police aren’t sure if either of the air pistols was the one brandished by Perez before the driver sped off.
Perez was arrested on suspicion of attempted carjacking, and booked into the San Jose jail without bail. He is scheduled to appear in court today at noon.
