A 24-year-old woman was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a carjacking and kidnapping incident in the parking lot of the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where she had been held earlier in the day on suspicion of public drug intoxication, authorities said.
Hesperia resident Monique Irene Cadena was first arrested around 10:30 a.m. by the Victorville Police Department for allegedly being under the influence of a controlled substance. She was booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, according to a statement from the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department, which is operated by the the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Upon her release from the detention center at 5:10 p.m., Cadena approached several people in the facility’s visitor area to ask for a ride, authorities said.
Just after 6:30 p.m., Cadena got into a white Hyundai Sonata that had been left running at the curb near the visiting area, according to police. An “elderly” woman was waiting in the car for the driver, a family member, to return, and Cadena allegedly drove away from the jail as the victim screamed for help, police said.
Another person in the parking lot witnessed the scene and immediately reported the incident to a deputy.
Minutes after the abduction, Cadena dropped the victim off at a gas station at the intersection of Valley and Cherry avenues in Fontana, about 3 miles away from the detention center, officers said. She was unharmed, and deputies escorted her back to her family at the jail.
Officials searched the area but did not locate Cadena until around 10 p.m., when officers from the Fontana Police Department spotted the stolen Hyundai in Fontana near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Avenue.
Cadena was then arrested for the second time Wednesday, without incident, and taken back to the West Valley Detention Center.
She was booked on suspicion of carjacking and kidnapping.