BAY POINT — A 40-year-old Pittsburg man has been charged with stealing a wheelchair from a man with only one leg, after the victim awoke from a nap to discover a burglary in his home.
The defendant was charged on Sept. 24 with burglary, dependent abuse, criminal threats and robbery, all felonies, as well as misdemeanor battery and drug possession counts, court records show. He remains in jail with bail set at $1.34 million, and a court date set for Oct. 2, court records show.
The charges stem from an Aug. 29 incident on the 1000 block of Clearland Drive in Bay Point. The victim, a 66-year-old man with an amputated leg, woke up from a nap, heard someone rummaging through his stuff and yelled out. The 40-year-old man allegedly responded by hitting the resident in the face, threatening to have him killed, then making off with the electric wheelchair, authorities said.
Police responded to a report of a stolen wheelchair and initially detained the wrong man, when they saw someone riding the wheelchair near Clearland Drive and Beverly Road. They brought the suspect back to the Clearland Drive residence, where the victim verified that he wasn’t the assailant. The man turned out to be a Samaritan who heard about the theft, caught up with the suspect, retrieved the wheelchair and was on his way to return it when a deputy drove by, authorities said.