LAKE TAPPS, Wash. -- Security video from a camera at the Chevron station in Lake Tapps shows a would-be car thief getting much more than he bargained for.
It was just before 6 a.m. Thursday when a customer at the gas station on Forest Canyon Road left his car running to buy something inside.
Sergeant Jerry Bates of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department called it a perfect crime of opportunity: "(A thief) happens to be out looking for cars to steal and here's one running in front of the Chevron station."
The thief walked up and sat in the stranger's running car. But before he could take off, the owner returned and jumped in the passenger side to stop the thief.
The car started rolling with the men fighting inside.
"You could see in the video, he just started beating him and the car was spinning around and almost ran his legs over," said Tracie Griffus, a stylist at the neighboring hair salon.
The fight moved out of the car and onto the ground in front of the gas station's convenience store. Two others at the pumps helped the owner hold the thief until deputies arrived.
"When they arrived to handcuff him, he was holding a small folding knife that hadn't been deployed but was in his hands, so he'd armed himself on top of everything happening," said Bates.
He said deputies also discovered 13 shaved keys used for stealing cars.
The suspect, identified as 26-year-old Travis Warfel of Sumner, has been booked into the Pierce County Jail on charges of vehicle theft, reckless endangerment and possession of tools of car theft, according to police.
Bates says Warfel has a long history of arrests for car thefts and prowls.
Deputies are still trying to identify his possible accomplice from video inside the store.
