A 41-year-old woman is behind bars on $1.025 million bail after San Diego County deputies say she crashed a stolen vehicle on Interstate 5, stole a second car from a good Samaritan, and then rammed her way through a Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood, striking a resident twice before she was cornered inside a stranger's garage.
The chain of events began shortly before 7 p.m. last Saturday, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, when deputies from the 4S Ranch Sheriff's Substation responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle in the 6500 block of Rancho Santa Fe Farms Drive. Deputies found the car parked oddly across a driveway with its engine running, and inside sat Laura Maria Partida, apparently talking to herself, as reported by NBC 7 San Diego, citing San Diego County Sheriff's Lieutenant Colin Hebeler.
Investigators determined that earlier that day, Partida had allegedly crashed a stolen vehicle on northbound Interstate 5 near Del Mar after losing control and hitting a guardrail. She then took a vehicle belonging to a bystander who had stopped on the freeway shoulder to help, leaving that good Samaritan stranded on the roadway, per the same sheriff's account relayed by the station.
Spike Strip, a Reversing Car, and a Garage Full of Trouble
When deputies moved in on the suspicious vehicle in Rancho Santa Fe, Partida allegedly put the car in reverse with the windows rolled up and drove around a parked patrol cruiser deputies had positioned behind her. Deputies deployed a spike strip in front of the vehicle, but she ran over it anyway, according to the sheriff's office account.
Partida then crashed the vehicle and fled on foot, allegedly driving through the neighborhood at high speed before the crash and entering an open residential garage in the 7300 block of Saint Andrews Road, where an elderly couple was preparing to leave for dinner, the sheriff's office says. She allegedly entered the couple's car and took their keys. One of the residents was struck twice as Partida attempted to drive away, according to Hebeler, and the victim was transported to a hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Armed Neighborhood Patrol Joined the Takedown
Sheriff's deputies and private security officers detained Partida before she could flee the property, according to the sheriff's office. Those security officers belong to the Rancho Santa Fe Patrol, a 24-hour armed private security force the Rancho Santa Fe Association established in 1976 after the county eliminated a dedicated resident deputy position for the area, per the association's own history.
The California Highway Patrol is leading the investigation into the freeway collisions on I-5, while the Sheriff's Office holds overall responsibility for the criminal investigation into the carjacking and assault in Rancho Santa Fe, the sheriff's office says.
Booking Details and Looming Felony Exposure
Records released by the sheriff's office show Partida, born August 23, 1985, was initially booked into the Vista Detention Facility before being transferred to Las Colinas Women's Jail in Santee, a 45-acre, 1,280-bed facility that opened in 2014 and serves as the county's primary intake site for incarcerated women. She had an arraignment scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, according to the station's report.
Partida faces possible charges, including assault, burglary, carjacking, auto theft, elder abuse, hit-and-run, driving while intoxicated, and providing false identity to a peace officer, per the same account. Carjacking under California Penal Code Section 215 is a violent felony carrying three, five, or nine years in state prison, counts as a strike under the state's Three Strikes Law, and requires offenders to serve at least 85 percent of any sentence before parole eligibility, according to Power Trial Lawyers. Elder abuse charged under Penal Code Section 368 can bring two to four years in state prison, with five-year enhancements possible if a victim 70 or older suffers great bodily injury, per Wallin & Klarich. Because California has no standalone vehicular assault law, driving a car at a person is instead prosecuted as assault with a deadly weapon under Penal Code Section 245(a)(1), which carries up to four years in state prison, according to Eisner Gorin LLP.
It remains unclear whether investigators will request a mental health evaluation for Partida, given deputies' observation that she appeared to be talking to herself inside the running vehicle before she fled, and prosecutors have not yet said what formal charges they will file at her arraignment. This is at least the second violent public-safety incident to draw a heavy law enforcement response in Rancho Santa Fe in recent days, following an earlier resort hotel worker grab that also prompted a sheriff's search of the area.
