Friend’s husband douses woman with gas, threatens her with a machete, police say

Firefighters had to decontaminate a woman Sunday afternoon after she was doused with gasoline and threatened with a machete in San Diego’s City Heights, authorities said.

The woman said a friend’s husband doused her with gasoline and tried to light her on fire shortly before 3 p.m. on Fairmount Avenue near Polk Avenue, San Diego police Officer John Buttle said.

The assailant was last seen headed toward 45th Street, Buttle said.

Video shows firefighters rinsing off the woman and providing her with a change of clothes. The victim told OnScene TV that the husband of one her friends drove up and wrongly accused her of stealing watches.

“He pulled [out] a water bottle full of gasoline and drenched me with it — twice — while holding a lighter, threatening to set me on fire,” she said.

She said she ran for help, and that a friend “hopped out with a golf club, to save me, basically.”

At that point, the woman said, the assailant “pulled a machete out of the driver’s seat of his car,” and continued to threaten her. The woman said the assailant fled when she called police.

Figueroa writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com