Valencia Park resident injured in home invasion robbery, car theft

Four armed men stormed into a Valencia Park home early Thursday, beat up the resident and stole his wife’s Lexus with a gun in it, San Diego police said.

Hours later, officers got into a pursuit behind the stolen car and arrested the driver in the Webster neighborhood.

The robbers wore bandanna masks and carried a pistol, a baseball bat and a golf club when they turned up at the home on Cervantes Avenue, east of Euclid Avenue, police Lt. Eric Hays said.

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They first knocked on the door or made some other noise on the front porch. The sounds woke the 32-year-old resident and he opened the front door, Hays said. That’s when the men barged inside.

They repeatedly asked where to find the victim’s 19-year-old stepson and a house safe. The victim was pistol-whipped across his face when he told them he didn’t know, Hays said.

Hays said the robbers ransacked the house for possibly about 10 minutes, then took the keys to a Lexus belonging to the victim’s wife. In the glove box was a gun belonging to the victim, who works as a security guard.

A neighbor who heard the commotion at the house called police about 3:40 a.m., saying the robbers left in the Lexus and two other cars.

The victim’s wife and stepson were not at home during the robbery. Hays said police were trying to find the teen to ask him about the intruders.

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Police issued a description of the black, four-door 2006 Lexus GS300.

About 12:30 p.m., officers spotted the stolen Lexus near Euclid and Isla Vista Drive and tried to pull over the driver. They pursued the car until it stopped on Home Avenue near Euclid Avenue, where it sideswiped a parked car. Police got the driver into custody quickly. Two men and a woman ran from the Lexus.

One police car crashed into a metal fence around a park at the end of the pursuit. About a dozen patrol cars converged on the street.

Residents in a nearby apartment complex told police the three who ran from the Lexus may have run into the complex. Officers used dogs to search a canyon, with help from a police helicopter.

Police said the gun that had been stored in the car was not in it after it crashed.