Carol Garnier and Mary Dao: Mother-daughter duo fight off intruder who tries to steal food from their restaurant
WESTMINSTER, CALIFORNIA: A chef and her daughter running a meal prep business in Westminster, California, successfully thwarted an alleged thief with a large table on Sunday, August 7. Chef Carol Garnier, who owns 'Prepped With Love' at 14250 Beach Boulevard, said the man entered their business at around 7:45 pm, just after the last customer left. However, ABC7 reported that the door didn't lock after the last customer left. Surveillance video showed the intruder entering the store and heading straight for the prepared food inside the glass-door refrigerator.
"My instincts just kick in. I don't even know how I knew how to grab that table and push it against him, but it's just all of the adrenaline, I just did what I had to do," said Mary Dao, Garnier's daughter. "I needed to protect the food and get him out of here." Once Dao began pushing the table against the intruder as he grabbed an item from the refrigerator, her mother ran over to help. "We just used the table to just kind of gear him away from the restaurant," Garnier said. "I didn't want him to enter and get behind the counter. That's where our knives are, or go deeper into the fridge and get all of the meals.
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"If you just ask, I am more than happy to make you something to eat, but the fact he didn't say anything," Garnier said, before adding "he just came in and just aggressively tried to steal our food is what got me." She said they didn't have time to react. "Mama bear just sprung into action to protect my property, my daughter and anything further to be damaged," she told the same news outlet. Garnier and Dao repeatedly pushed a table against the intruder, and it appeared that prevented him from getting any closer. The clip does show him throwing a beer can at Dao's face, tABC7 reported, adding that she wasn't injured.
The mother and daughter said that they were not going to let him get away with their hard work. "I was ready to get down and use my hands if I needed to," Dao said. "We've been working hard making food all day and that belonged to somebody. They paid for that and you just can't come in here and take what's not yours." It would have been a lot simpler, she said, if the man had just requested some food.
Garnier said they did file a report with Westminster police. Police say they recognize the man captured on surveillance video and they're actively looking for him.
