Guard Attacked With Pepper Spray
A shoplifter attacked a Mervyn’s department store undercover security guard with pepper spray in the face Thursday when she tried to stop him, police said.
“He pulled out the pepper spray and sprayed me,” said Mimi Gil of Ventura, who was not injured but had remnants of the spray on her white shirt after the 2:30 p.m. incident. “I closed my eyes as soon as I saw the spray.”
Gil, 22, said she recognized the man from a theft at the Mervyn’s in Oxnard last July. So when he entered the Mervyn’s on Telephone Road on Thursday she watched him.
The man immediately grabbed a pair of blue jeans, two pairs of underwear and a couple pairs of socks and headed toward the door, she said. Gil attempted to stop him, but he turned and sprayed her and made off with merchandise valued at about $130, said Ventura Police Officer Lynne Klamser.
Gil described the man as Latino, about 19 years old, approximately 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, with a shaved head. He was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt. Gil said he drove off in a white Ford Taurus with three passengers.
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