REDLANDS – Five days after a car was stolen with two girls inside, police arrested a 24-year-old Highland man, identified through store surveillance video. The girls, ages ten and two, jumped from the car when the alleged assailant, Cory Michael Ahumada, began driving away from an area convenience store, police said. Ahumada was due in San Bernardino Superior Court on Monday.
On June 21, Ahumada was seen in store surveillance footage jumping into the car after the girls’ mother went inside the 7-Eleven store at 1161 Lugonia Avenue, according to police. She left her 2002 Acura 2L running at a gas pump while she went inside to pay. She had left her daughters in the back seat, according to reports.
When the man jumped inside the car, the 10-year-old girl grabbed her two-year-old sister and jumped from the moving car. As the mother emerged from the store, the video shows the sisters jumping out of a rear passenger side door. The girls suffered minor abrasions.
Redlands police detectives were alerted that Ahumada was at the San Manuel Indian Casino in neighboring Highland. The detectives located Ahumada at the casino, contacted security and took him into custody without incident, according to reports.
Upon his arrest, detectives recovered stolen property that belonged to the victim, but did not immediately recover the stolen car. Ahumada faces three charges – assault, kidnapping and vehicle theft.
The original identification of Ahumada as the suspect was aided through store surveillance video, because he had made an earlier purchase inside the 7-Eleven before the car was stolen, according to police.
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