A homeless woman is accused of stealing a car outside a Long Island church and running over its owner, then brazenly claiming that the vehicle was hers, cops and a witness said.
Doreen Dunbar, 50, jumped into the Chevrolet Spark as it was running outside St Mary’s Church on Lake Shore Drive in Lake Ronkonkoma at around 6:45 pm, Suffolk County police said.
The vehicle’s owner, Lorraine Lombardo, 73 — who had ran out to drop off some clothes in a donation bin — then opened the driver’s side door and tried to wrestle the steering wheel back from Dubar’s hands, police said.
Police said the carjacker accelerated the stolen Chevy in reverse, knocking down Lombardo and running over her legs.
Neighbor Kathleen White said she then saw Dunbar return to the spot where Lombardo was laying on the ground, and heard her arguing with the victim that the car actually belonged to her.
“She came back and she was arguing with the woman on the ground saying, ‘It’s my car.’ So the two were arguing [over] whose car it was. So I said, ‘Well, the police can figure out whose car it is,’” White told News 12.
Dunbar sped off, crashed the hatchback into a nearby guardrail and a fence, and then ran off on foot, police said.
Cops who responded to the scene captured Dunbar a short time later with the help of a helicopter and a K9 unit.
The 50-year-old, who police said is homeless, was arrested on charges of first-degree assault and second-degree robbery.
Lombardo was taken to Stony Book University Hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries to her legs, police said. Dunbar was taken to the same hospital for evaluation.