The woman dashed into the California store late Sunday night, leaving her two children in the back of her car, police said.
The car’s engine was left running, San Bernardino police Lt. Rich Lawhead told the Los Angeles Times.
“She ran in the store real quick. . . . She had the car in sight,” Lawhead told the Press Enterprise.
But police said that as the woman exited the store, she saw her vehicle pulling away, according to local reports. And so Tatanisha Golden, the mother, acted quickly.
Via the L.A. Times: “The mother was leaving the store just as the gray sedan was backing up, so she jumped on the hood to try and stop the driver from fleeing, Lawhead said. [The suspect] allegedly swerved left and right until the mother was shaken off, then he sped off, police said.”
“I lost my grip as he swerved. I fell off,” Golden told reporters.
A few good Samaritans also helped out, though.
The Associated Press reports that after the car drove off with Golden’s young son and daughter, it was tailed by two witnesses, who Lawhead said notified police.
The vehicle crashed and the suspect tried to flee, AP reported.
Lawhead said that authorities eventually located the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Steven Young, after receiving a tip.
The children weren’t hurt in the incident, according to AP.
“She learned a valuable lesson,” Lawhead said in the wire service report. “You don’t want to leave your kids alone, for any amount of time.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Sarah Larimer
