Man Held After Crashing Car Into Water Bed Store

A Garden Grove man was arrested after he threatened to kill his girlfriend and drove his car through the front of a Huntington Beach water bed store where she was hiding.

Francisco C. Cruz, a toy assembler, drove at an estimated speed of 25 to 30 m.p.h. through the narrow storefront of Terry’s Waterbeds in the 18700 block of Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach at 2:40 a.m., police said.

The store was closed, but the manager, Lassiter Thompson II, and another employee were working and suffered minor injuries from flying glass, they said.

Thompson had let Cruz’s girlfriend, Fernma Cabrera, an employee of the store, inside after Cruz had beaten her during an argument outside a bar next door to the store, Sgt. Luis Ochoa said. Cabrera locked herself in the bathroom, and Thompson and his partner, Alan Hunter, were standing in the front of the store when Cruz drove his compact car into the store, he said.

After smashing through two-thirds of the store, Cruz got out and tried to break down the bathroom door, threatening to kill Cabrera, Ochoa said.

When police arrived, Cruz had kicked and punched a large hole in the bathroom door, he said.

Cruz was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and was held in lieu of $25,000 bail, Ochoa said. Neither Cruz nor Cabrera, who lived with Cruz in Garden Grove, was injured, police said.