Woman Carjacked Inside Gated Simi Neighborhood

A mother and her infant child were carjacked this week outside their home in a gated community--a rare event in Simi Valley, which the FBI ranks as the safest big city in the nation.

Police said Susan Smith, 36, and her infant child were unharmed in the incident, which occurred about 7 p.m. Tuesday on Double Eagle Drive, in the exclusive Wood Ranch neighborhood.

It was the first carjacking in Wood Ranch, according to police, and the city’s 10th since 1994. Last month, a carjacking occurred on the east side of Simi Valley, but a suspect was arrested in that case and police say there is no connection with Tuesday’s crime.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department has responded to 27 carjacking reports during the past five years, a spokesman said. The department covers Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and unincorporated areas of the county.

Statistics were not immediately available for cities outside the sheriff’s jurisdiction, including Oxnard, Santa Paula and Ventura, although published accounts show at least five carjackings have occurred this year in those cities.

Smith was getting out of her 1996 Buick Regal in front of her home when she saw a dark-colored Mazda sedan pull up and two armed men get out, said Police Lt. Gordon Weeks.

Smith told police the men, whom she described as Latino and in their late 20s or early 30s, approached her and took her purse and car keys. One of the men removed the infant from the car at Smith’s request. Two more men appeared, and the four drove off, followed by a fifth man, who was driving the Mazda, according to police.

Police found the Buick ransacked and abandoned at a nearby shopping center parking lot. They had not made any arrests as of Wednesday evening.

Smith could not be reached for comment.

“It’s a shocker,” said Henry Miller, who has lived in Smith’s neighborhood for 10 years. “Basically, we feel perfectly safe here. Young women do their walking, running and jogging by themselves and they feel perfectly safe.”

Miller said private security guards patrol the neighborhood several times a day. But, he said, some residents have complained over the years that the neighborhood’s automated gate didn’t give them protection enough from the outside world.

“People quite often follow cars in two or three at a time,” he said.

Discussions about replacing the automated gate with a fully staffed station stalled in the past because of high costs, Miller said. But Tuesday night’s incident “could generate some more interest,” he said.

Police Sgt. Bob Gardner said the carjacking shows that no neighborhood is immune from crime--even one protected by gates and guards.

“Simi is statistically the safest city in America, and Ventura County is one of the safest counties in the country,” he said. “But crime can and does occur anywhere.”