A woman accused of stealing a truck and cargo trailer containing more than 30 firearms from the parking lot of a Portland hotel crashed with the trailer Tuesday afternoon on the Interstate 5 Bridge and ran into Vancouver.
The crash, which damaged several vehicles and the subsequent police activity tied up northbound freeway lanes for two hours, greatly complicated an already congested evening commute.
Angelina Nicole Pintor-Schindler appeared in federal court in Portland on Wednesday on suspicion of theft from a federal firearms licensee. Booking records at the Multnomah County Detention Center state she is 19 years old.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the trailer Pintor-Schindler allegedly stole Monday morning from the Oxford Suites in Jantzen Beach belonged to a federally licensed firearms dealer who was in the area for a gun show over the weekend at the Portland Expo Center.
When officers searched the trailer after the crash, they did not find all of the guns that were stolen, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Kevin Sonoff.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Jason Chudy said the agency will continue to investigate until officers have recovered all of the guns.
At 5:05 p.m. Tuesday, the Portland Police Bureau’s Focused Intervention Team was helping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recover the stolen truck and trailer when Pintor-Schindler crashed on the bridge. Portland police were not pursuing her when she crashed because of the amount of traffic, according to spokesman Lt. Nathan Sheppard.
She then ran from the crash and into Vancouver, prompting a large police response and closure of nearby streets before she was located and taken into custody.
Video of the crash shows the truck crashing into multiple cars as it enters the bridge before coming to a stop across multiple lanes. Sheppard said no injuries were reported to Portland police.
