...Taylor, 62, who is a minister in Inglewood, said he was stopped March 4 at the wheel of his white 1997 Ford Thunderbird with tinted windows just after picking up his 15-year-old daughter from NorthHart said Taylor's car matched the description of one used the day before in the violent kidnapping of an elderly woman.
In that crime, the unidentified woman was kidnapped at what she believed to be gunpoint outside the Target store at Sepulveda and Madrona boulevards.
The unidentified woman was forced by a man and a woman to withdraw money from her bank account and remove jewelry from her home, Hart said. Stolen was $142,000 in jewelry and at least $3,500 in cash.
Involved in the incident was a black woman, described as being around 5 feet 7 inches tall and 40 to 45 years of age, and a tall, thin black man with short, shaved hair and smartly dressed in a shirt, tie and slacks, possibly in his 30
The pair drove a white, mid-1990's, Ford Thunderbird with tinted windows. That's similar to the car Taylor was driving.
The crime was the fourth in the city believed to involve the same suspects who target elderly women in so-called pigeon drop or bait-and-switch schemes since June 2009, Hart said.
Such schemes generally involve people who approach their victims with a large quantity of cash and insist they will split it if the victims put up "good faith" money of their own first, Hart said. At some point the cash is switched with worthless pieces of paper and the suspects flee with the victim's money.
But this one differed from the others in that the two suspects threatened the woman's life.
"It has escalated and become more violent," Hart said. "The latest crime these suspects committed was a robbery/kidnapping - they took the victim hostage."
But Taylor said the officers who stopped him said they did so because they believed there were several warrants out for the arrest of a Robert Taylor. That Robert Taylor had a different date of birth than his, he said.
Taylor accused the officers of lying Wednesday and questioned why they couldn't tell him the real reason he was stopped.
Hart said officers often are circumspect in such incidents.
"Police officers will routinely detain people based on information given to us," he said. "It is not uncommon when police officers are investigating cases to not alert (someone) that they may be the subject of an investigation."
But Hart said he doesn't know why the public, including especially vulnerable elderly women, weren't immediately alerted that two potentially violent criminals were on the loose in Torrance.
Hart said police were readying information about the crime to alert the public.
The Daily Breeze only learned of the crime from police late Tuesday when Taylor announced the press conference would be held the following day.
Taylor said it wasn't until he went down to the police station later on the day he was stopped that he was told about the crime that occurred the previous day.
But Taylor said that even though he and his daughter were riding in the same kind of car as the suspected black male and female robbers that still doesn't justify officers stopping him....
“But Taylor said that even though he and his daughter were riding in the same kind of car as the suspected black male and female robbers that still doesn’t justify officers stopping him....”
Ummm sorry Charlie, I say it does. My husband got pulled over years ago. Seems there was felon at large driving a late model Lincoln Continental same color as the one we drove. Hubby said when he rolled down the window the officer’s face radiated relief. Hubby was too old to match the the guy they were looking for. Officer passed along the plate # on the car to dispatch as being NOT the one they were looking for.