Pregnant SUV driver arrested after allegedly running down suspected thief
The 26-year-old expecting mother was charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
— -- A pregnant woman was arrested in North Carolina on Wednesday after she reportedly mowed down an alleged thief with her SUV in a Wal-Mart parking lot, police said.
After an investigation, police said that Christine Braswell, 26, of Canton, was returning to her parked car outside a Wal-Mart in Asheville on Wednesday afternoon when she saw a man enter her unattended, unsecured vehicle and rummage through her purse. When she confronted the man, he dropped the purse and ran across the parking lot in an attempt to flee, according to the Asheville Police Department.
Braswell, who told authorities she is pregnant, then got into her 1999 Ford Explorer and chased the man, eventually striking him with her car, police said.
The man, identified as 34-year-old Robert Raines of Leicester, suffered cuts and abrasions and was transported to a nearby hospital, according to Asheville Police Department spokesman Wallace Welch.
The Asheville Police Department arrested Braswell for misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon and transported her to the Buncombe County Detention Facility. The department has issued warrants for Raines for breaking and entering a motor vehicle, larceny after breaking and entering a motor vehicle and damage to property, according to Welch.
It's unclear whether they have entered pleas.
ABC Asheville affiliate WLOS-TV obtained exclusive footage of the alleged incident and interviewed Braswell afterward. The expecting mother said she ran over Raines because she was unable to pursue him on foot after he allegedly took off with her purse.
"He was with my purse, and he took off, and I took off after him," she told the station. "Me being five months pregnant, I chased a little ways, then come back, jumped in the car, threw it in gear and come across the curb and ran him over. I was not going to let him get away with it. It's not right. It's not fair."
