A Los Angeles mother was talking to her mother on the phone on the road when she suddenly started screaming in fear and rushed home to crash a car being used by thieves, dramatic video of the confrontation shows.
The woman had just gone out to get coffee and was on the phone with her mother when two masked burglars showed up outside the back sliding door of her Sherman Oaks home around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, her family said.
“My mom was screaming. My kids were in the house,” the woman told NBC News on Monday. “She was screaming like crazy.”
Fearing for the safety of her mother and three children, the woman rushed home in her G-Wagon and crashed into a car parked outside – unaware at the time that she had actually hit the getaway car.
“I saw those guys and I panicked. I was shocked, you know, like I accidentally hit their car,” the woman said. “In my mind, I think they killed my family.”
Surveillance cameras nearby showed the two men fleeing the scene after the woman returned home.
Moments later, a third man, believed to be the getaway driver, emerges from the right side of the car the panicked woman had just hit, the video shows.
The third man had to pass on the passenger side because the collision blocked and sealed the driver’s side entrance.
Police investigators found a handheld radio inside the vehicle that may have been used to monitor police activity.
The woman bluntly told the three men never to come back.
“Next time I’m going to kill them,” she said. “Don’t come back, don’t come back to my house.”
The Los Angeles Police Department declined to comment Tuesday, saying it was investigating.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com
