A woman was injured in Carlsbad Tuesday night when a man attacked her with a machete and attempted to steal her car, just as she was getting inside her vehicle.
The Carlsbad Police Department said the brazen carjacking attempt happened just before 7 p.m. near an apartment complex in the 1300 block of Laurel Tree Lane, with several bystanders around.
Police said the victim was about to get into her car to go shopping when an unknown man approached her, threatened her with a machete and demanded her car keys.
The woman refused to hand over her keys and began screaming for help. The suspect and victim then struggled, and the man eventually fled the scene.
Police said the woman suffered a cut to her hand in the fight, and, though badly bleeding, drove herself to the hospital for treatment.
One witness told NBC 7 he recognized the suspect as the same person who tried to steal a motorcycle last week near the same apartment complex on Laurel Tree Lane.
“He's been trying to steal the motorcycle and the car. You know he might just come back again and try to steal something else,” witness Job Gonzalez said.
Carlsbad police described the suspect as a dark-skinned man approximately 65 years old, standing at 5-foot-6-inches, weighing around 160 pounds. He was wearing a yellow and white helmet, a dark blue
jacket and jeans at the time of the attack.
The neighborhood was on high alert Tuesday night as the suspect remained at large.
