A woman pumping gas at a Berkeley Chevron station was nearly carjacked Thursday afternoon when a woman allegedly pointed what looked like a handgun at her and demanded her keys. The victim, described as being in her 40s, ran to safety, and police caught up with the suspect just blocks away.
The attempted carjacking happened around 3:30 p.m. at the Chevron station at 1300 San Pablo Avenue at Gilman Street, according to The Berkeley Scanner. Authorities said the suspect, identified as 38-year-old Ashley Frankum, had been loitering at the station before the confrontation. Berkeley officers responded after receiving a 911 call and found Frankum a few blocks away at Eighth and Harrison streets.
Witnesses Point Police to the Suspect
Multiple witnesses identified Frankum as the suspect, police said, and officers subsequently recovered the weapon used in the attempted carjacking. It turned out to be a realistic-looking BB gun rather than a firearm, according to the same report. The victim was not harmed and managed to escape before Frankum could take her car.
Frankum fled the scene before her arrest, the outlet's report notes, though it does not specify how officers ultimately took her into custody once she was located near Eighth and Harrison. She is now being held at Berkeley Jail on $200,000 bail and is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday.
A Record Stretching Back Years
Frankum's criminal history in Alameda County goes back more than a decade. She has a 2015 conviction for assault with a deadly weapon likely to cause great bodily injury, per court records cited in the report. More recently, she was charged in three separate felony cases in 2024 that included burglary, auto burglary, criminal threats and several counts of felony vandalism.
One of those 2024 cases initially sent her into a drug diversion program, which court records show was terminated several months later. Another of the cases placed her on probation through June 2028 — a term she was still serving when this week's carjacking attempt allegedly occurred.
Berkeley's Robbery Numbers Tell Different Stories
The incident lands amid conflicting pictures of robbery trends in Berkeley this year. Preliminary police data cited by The Berkeley Scanner showed robberies down about 8% in 2026, with 136 incidents reported through Oct. 24. A separate account of preliminary data published by Hoodline put the decline at 13%, with 105 robberies reported so far this year — figures that don't line up with the Scanner's count.
Longer-term city data offers more consistency. Collectively, crime in Berkeley fell 11% from 2024 to 2025 across the categories tracked by the police department, according to Berkeleyside. Robbery clearance rates improved from 34% in 2024 to 49% in 2025, even as total crimes against people — essentially violent crimes — ticked up 2%, from 1,809 to 1,849. Vehicle thefts and auto burglaries both fell sharply over that span, while shootings dropped 40%, from 25 to 15.
Another Recent Berkeley Arrest
The Chevron station incident follows another violent arrest in Berkeley this month. A 36-year-old parolee identified as James Dexter Thompson was arrested after an alleged robbery near San Pablo Park that left a 22-year-old woman with possible broken teeth and missing her laptop, Hoodline reported. Thompson was booked on suspicion of robbery, battery with serious bodily injury, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and other offenses, along with a parole violation, and his bail was set at $285,000 ahead of a scheduled arraignment at Wiley Manuel Courthouse.
Under California law, brandishing what looks like a firearm can carry criminal consequences even when the weapon turns out to be fake. California Penal Code Section 417.4 makes it a misdemeanor to draw or exhibit an imitation firearm in a threatening manner that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm, except in cases of self-defense, according to the California Legislative Information website.
