A group of thieves stole a man’s muscle car from the garage of his Studio City apartment building this week — but not before spending over an hour attempting to get it out in an ordeal that was caught on camera, according to reports.
The incident began Tuesday after 4 a.m., when three people used a tool to break into the garage of the building, located Acama Street and Valley Spring Lane, CBS Los Angeles reported.
The suspects then got into the car — a 2017 Dodge Charger Daytona 392 — and successfully started it up, but were unable to leave because the gate was locked.
“They got inside [the garage] and they were in there for a while,” car owner Stephan Wendel told KTLA. “They got into my car and started the car, I don’t know how.”
The garage gate requires a code to open. The thieves exited the car and began searching for a solution — including by rifling through the car, apparently looking for a remote, KTLA reported.
Not finding success, the thieves parked the car in the garage and walked outside to a nearby white Cadillac sedan and waited for a resident to open the garage, according to the station.
An hour later, a resident arrived and opened the gate. Surveillance video aired by KTLA shows the suspects pulling up in the Cadillac before two men exited the vehicle and held the gate open.
A neighbor spotted the thieves and tried successfully to chase after them.
She followed the guys for a while, from here down to Ventura and up to Tujunga. But then they floored it, and then she lost them,” Wendel told ABC 7.