Woman says intruder pepper-sprayed her during car break-in

Jana Arnarsdóttir says a man sprayed her in the face during an attempted break-in of her car in Reykjavík. She told mbl.is that she hopes her experience will prompt action over what appears to be a rise in break-ins involving homes and cars in the capital area.

Jana said she was sitting in her car around midnight on a Wednesday, talking to her father on the phone, when she saw a relatively young man in a red jacket with blond hair pull the handle of the car parked in front of hers.

That car was locked, so the man looked through its windows before walking towards Jana’s unlocked car, where she was sitting in total darkness. The incident unfolded in less than 10 to 15 seconds, she said. The man pulled the driver’s door open by about 30 centimetres.

He was startled when he realised Jana was inside, but she remained frozen in her seat. The man then sprayed a liquid into her face, which Jana said could hardly have been anything other than pepper spray, before running away.

“I had my father on the phone and he had no idea what was happening. I just started screaming, ‘He sprayed something in my face,’ and then it started burning and I freaked out,” Jana told mbl.is.

She managed to call the police, who arrived with an ambulance about 10 minutes later. Jana was taken to hospital for examination.

Jana said the paramedics and police had rarely, if ever, encountered someone being pepper-sprayed without cause in the street. The police had to tell the paramedics how to help her because they had never dealt with such a case before, she said. Police officers had learned how to respond because they carry pepper spray themselves, according to Jana.

Jana, who moved to the neighbourhood about a decade ago, said she had noticed more people looking through the windows of homes and cars. She said she was often awake at night because of work and had seen people walking through gardens.

She said better monitoring was needed, possibly through cameras or improved neighbourhood watch schemes.