Local News in Brief : 2 Employees Suspected in Car Wash Robbery
Two employees of a Thousand Oaks car wash robbed the business at gunpoint Tuesday and fled in an assistant manager’s pickup truck, Ventura County Sheriff’s Department officials said.
Loren Lem, 21, of Canoga Park was approached by two male employes about 6:45 p.m. as he left the Village Car Wash on the 3300 block of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, said Lt. Guy Inglis.
Inglis gave this account of the crime: One of the men had apparently hidden in a storage room after the business had closed for the day, and let the other man in through a rear entrance.
The two forced Lem into a restroom, bound him with tape and hit him in the head and neck with a shotgun while demanding the combination to the office safe. Lem, assistant manager of the car wash, told the men he did not know the combination.
The two then took a bag containing an undisclosed amount of cash from an office drawer. They also took an air compressor and several tool boxes and loaded them into Lem’s pickup. An hour after the pair drove away, Lem freed himself and called authorities.
He was taken to Los Robles Hospital, where he was treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The names of the two suspects, who were still at large, are not being released pending further investigation, Inglis said.
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