His crime spree led to a nail salon. Sisters getting manicures put an end to it, video shows
It wasn’t the relaxing birthday two sisters in southern California had imagined, but it sure was memorable.
Virginia and Imelda Bojorquez were at a nail salon in Los Angeles to get birthday manicures and pedicures together on Jan. 31 when their day took a violent twist: A man who police say had been on a crime spree waltzed into the salon right after the two sisters did around 10 a.m. and began attacking them, KLTA reports.
“What followed can only be described as a senseless act of violence,” Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Lillian Carranza said at a news conference.
But as the man attacked and punched them, the sisters didn’t hesitate in their response, video of the scene shows.
“There was no time to be scared,” Imelda said at the news conference.
The sisters grabbed chairs and other furniture to batter the man, video shows.
They “fought for their life and did everything humanly possible to protect each other,” Carranza said.
The fight with the suspect, Gustavo Aranda, 25, lasted about six minutes, police told KTLA.
“We alternated,” one of the sisters explained to CBS LA. “When he was on top of her, I came and fought with him to rescue her — and when he turned his attention to me and started attacking me, she came to my aid.”
Meanwhile, the worker who had just opened up the salon when the sisters arrived had fled the store to get help from bystanders, police said.
But when Rene Solis and a handful of other men arrived to help, he told CBS that the sisters had more or less beaten back the attacker.
“They were battling each other with chairs and stuff, so by the time I got ... in the battle, he just stopped,” Solis told the TV station.
And the attacker wasn’t in good shape, Solis said, describing a gash on the attacker and quite a bit of bleeding
“I saw how badly wounded he was, so I just looked over, and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m impressed,’ ” Solis told the TV station.
Aranda was arrested and has been booked on two counts of robbery, two counts of aggravated assault, battery and felony vandalism, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
He is being held on $150,000 bail, according to jail records.
Earlier that day, just before 8:30 a.m., Aranda had stolen a car from another man in the city, according to police. Aranda had gone up to the man from behind and shouted at him until the man started running away — but Aranda chased after him, police say, hitting the victim until he fell, and then grabbing the victim’s car keys from his pocket.
After his arrest, police said they were able to link Aranda to two additional crimes — one committed between the carjacking and the nail salon attack, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. Aranda went up to a man and punched him several times, police said, and then stole his cellphone. That was about 30 minutes after the carjacking that started the crime spree.
The other crime Aranda has been linked to occured on Jan. 5, the Daily News reports, when police say Aranda attacked another victim as the victim entered a parking lot.
This story was originally published February 5, 2018 at 4:02 PM with the headline "His crime spree led to a nail salon. Sisters getting manicures put an end to it, video shows."