A college student identified a carjacker on Aug. 26 who he says kidnapped him at gunpoint and struck him twice in the face, knocking out a tooth, in Pacific Beach.
\nBrett Charbonnel, 22, identified Skyler Jace Battreall, 20, who asked him for a ride on Oct. 14, 2018, while Charbonnel was parked on Cass Street near Garnet Avenue around 9 p.m.
\n“He needed to get somewhere. I thought I would help him out,” said Charbonnel, who added that Battreall claimed his motorcycle was stolen.
\n“He was super nice. I wasn\u2019t suspicious,” said Charbonnel who said he drove Batrreall to McDonald\u2019s on Garnet Avenue where the man initially said he wanted to go.
\nBut Battreall said that wasn\u2019t the right area and directed the Grossmont College student to go into a dark residential area in Pacific Beach.
\nSuddenly, Battreall pulled out a gun and said, “I\u2019m from Washington and I\u2019m wanted for murder,” said Charbonnel. “He pointed it right at me.”
\nCharbonnel told the nine-man, three-woman jury he slammed on the brakes, turned on the hazard lights and stopped to look at Battreall, who grabbed the wheel. Charbonnel said that move nearly caused him to strike a parked car.
\n“I gave him $33 so he would go away. This guy is intense,” said Charbonnel.
\nCharbonnel said he saw a couple walking down a sidewalk and he stopped to yell for help, saying, “Help, he has a gun!”
\nBattreall struck him twice in the face with the gun, and pushed Charbonnel out into the street, he said. The carjacker then drove away in Charbonnel\u2019s 2007 Hyundai Elantra.
\nPolice officer Christopher Johnson testified he was on patrol and he saw a car driving without headlights. Johnson said he followed the car onto Emerald Street and activated his overhead lights.
\nThe carjacker struck a parked car, and Johnson discovered it with the driver\u2019s seat open and someone running over a fence into someone\u2019s back yard.
\nDeputy District Attorney James Koerber asked Charbonnel if he ever got his car back. “No, it was totaled, wrecked,” said the student.
\nCharbonnel said he went to his damaged car days later where it was towed and he found his missing tooth under the driver\u2019s mat and the $33 he said he offered Battreall.
\nPhotos of a bloodied Charbonnel in a hospital bed were shown to the jury. He said another tooth had to be removed because it was damaged.
\nOfficer Matthew Zeunich testified he was overhead in a police ABLE helicopter as they searched the area with headlights looking for the carjacker.
\nJurors stared intently at the screen showing ABLE\u2019s cameras on 5-6 police officers in back yards and they are illuminated by moving white outlines showing their body heat. Zeunich said the helicopter\u2019s equipment was able to show Battreall was hiding under a tarp in the back yard of 1376 Emerald St.
\nOfficers arrested Battreall and they identified him in court. He had left a BB gun in the car, which the victim said he believed was a real gun.
\nA Greyhound bus employee testified that Battreall arrived in San Diego that same day after buying a ticket in Corsicana, Texas for $322 in cash on Oct. 12.
\nBattreall is charged with kidnapping during a carjacking, carjacking, and assault with a deadly weapon. His attorney, Chris Montoya, told jurors on Aug. 22 he would seek an acquittal on the kidnapping charge.
\n“Voluntary intoxication is an issue in this case,” said Montoya, adding that his client used cocaine on the day of the crime.
\nBattreall was convicted in Texas of auto theft, grand theft, and using fraudulent credit cards, court records say. Despite his story about being wanted for murder in Washington, there is no murder case pending against him.
\nBattreall remains in jail on $500,000 bail and has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A college student identified a carjacker on Aug. 26 who he says kidnapped him at gunpoint and struck him twice in the face, knocking out a tooth, in Pacific Beach. Brett Charbonnel, 22, identified Skyler Jace Battreall, 20, who asked him for a ride on Oct. 14, 2018, while Charbonnel was parked on Cass Street […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":256096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"College student identifies carjacker, kidnapper in Pacific Beach","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}