Woman Hurt When Car Repossessed on Freeway : Calabasas: Authorities are looking at possible charges against two men who allegedly used unorthodox methods to retrieve the 1992 Acura.

Two men in a tow truck rear-ended a car on the Ventura Freeway during an apparent repossession Wednesday, shoved its driver into a divider wall when she stopped to check for damage and dragged her along the shoulder when she reached into the moving car to retrieve her purse, authorities said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the incident for possible strong-arm robbery and grand theft auto charges because of the alleged unorthodox methods used by the two “repo men,” Detective Richard Schilling said.

“I can’t imagine that repossession companies would send bullies out like that to repossess,” said the car’s driver, 30-year-old Robin A. Tyler of Thousand Oaks, who acknowledged falling behind on payments for the 1992 Acura Vigor.

“I mean we’re having financial difficulties like everybody else is. I was a couple payments down on the car, but they never sent a notice of repossession,” said Tyler, who suffered scrapes and bruises during the 8 a.m. incident in Calabasas.

Schilling said he was still trying to confirm the identities and occupations of the men and had yet to interview several witnesses. Even if the men are employed by a repossession company, Schilling said, their alleged tactics could be considered criminal.

“We’re assuming they were repo persons who maybe got out of line,” Schilling said. “Those are not the ways you repossess a car.”

No arrests had been made Wednesday. Schilling said he would present evidence to the district attorney’s office for review, possibly early next week.

Schilling said one of the men phoned him “to offer his side of the story” after the incident was reported on the radio. The detective said he had yet to confirm the caller’s occupation or his companion’s identity and would not release their names.

He said Tyler’s car did appear on a state list of repossessed vehicles Wednesday.

Tyler, still shaken and tearful hours after the incident, said she was on her way to work as a dental assistant in Tarzana when she was rear-ended on the southbound Ventura Freeway near the Parkway Calabasas exit.

She said that at first she thought that the collision was an accident. Then she said she thought that she was the victim of a “car-jacking.”

Another driver finally stopped and gave her a ride to the local California Highway Patrol station. The CHP turned the case over to the Sheriff’s Department.

“If they would’ve just stopped me and said, ‘Your car is being repossessed,’ it would have made sense,” Tyler said. “But to forcibly push me down and drag me into traffic like that and endanger my life like that?”

Tyler, who has two daughters ages 13 and 4, said the poor economy has hurt her husband’s business as a stockbroker and she reluctantly returned to work a couple of months ago to help make ends meet.

Her husband, who declined to give his name, said they had fallen behind on their car payments at Christmas but had been gradually trying to catch up.

“We just made one payment three weeks ago and had planned to make another today, which would have put us only one payment behind,” he said.

Mary Beth Hayman, operations supervisor at American Honda Finance in Torrance, which holds title to Tyler’s car, declined to comment Wednesday, saying she needed to do her own research into the incident.

Hayman and Lisa Delaney, the finance company’s recovery director, declined to release any information concerning Tyler’s case, citing confidentiality.