Girl Sentenced in Armed Carjacking

A 15-year-old Oxnard girl who stole a retired teacher’s car at knifepoint and crashed it during a joy ride was sentenced Thursday to four months in Colston Youth Center, with weekend furlough privileges, and two months of wearing an electronic tracking device while living at home.

The girl pleaded guilty last month to charges of carjacking, use of a knife and hit-and-run after she and another girl allegedly squirted pepper spray into the teacher’s face and took her car.

The other girl--after pleading not guilty to charges of carjacking, hit-and-run, use of pepper spray and robbery--faces a hearing Monday to determine if she should be tried as a juvenile or an adult. She is 16 years old.

The girls are not identified here because of their ages.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Tatum said she is disappointed that the 15-year-old was not sentenced to the California Youth Authority’s Camarillo juvenile detention center.

There, the girl would have been segregated from nonviolent inmates and enrolled in an intensive counseling program designed to rehabilitate violent young women, Tatum said. Instead, the girl will be housed with the general population at Colston, she said.

The girl’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

Police said the two girls accosted Gertrude Cash, a retired biology teacher, in the parking lot of a Vons supermarket in Oxnard on June 17. The 15-year-old pulled a knife and demanded Cash’s car keys, and when Cash did not respond quickly enough, the 16-year-old allegedly squirted her with pepper spray.

The pair grabbed Cash’s keys and sped off until they hit another car, police said. Its driver drove after them and forced them to stop. Then he and another man chased the girls on foot and detained them until police could arrest them.

The 16-year-old girl is being held in Juvenile Hall in Ventura.