WeHo bulldog kidnapped at gunpoint rescued through dad’s devotion

Justin Garcia knows how lucky he is. Ten million pets go missing every year; fewer than one in five are ever found. And Justin’s baby boy — his beloved English bulldog, Capone — didn’t just run out the gate or wander off from the park. He was taken at gunpoint on the street outside his apartment on posh Olive Drive, a stone’s throw from the Sunset Strip.

The armed robbery managed to shock people in West Hollywood who over the past few years have become used to reports of hold-ups and carjackings.

As any pet parent can attest, it’s one thing to have your purse or your watch stolen, and quite another to have your child ripped from your arms.

As he caught a last glimpse of Capone being spirited away into a Jeep Compass as it sped off down the road, Justin knew that if he was ever going to see his baby boy again, he would have to find him himself.

‘Give me the dog or die’

“Wait, you heard the gun cock?” I ask.

“I literally heard the first guy cock his gun,” Justin says.

It was 11:30 p.m. on November 6. Justin drives for Uber, and it had been a long day at work. He was taking Capone on a final, late walk for the evening. On the way, they stopped at his Hyundai Ioniq 5 so Justin could grab some cash he’d left in the car.

Capone waited by his side.

Then Justin noticed a vehicle pulling up from behind. It slowed and came to a stop. He pulled Capone closer to him.

Two people got out of the vehicle wearing COVID masks.

Then he heard the gun cock.

That’s when he realized what was happening.

“These people were here to rob me,” he said.

Suddenly he found himself flanked by two black Glocks, both just inches from his face — and faced with making a choice no parent should have to make.

“Give me the dog or die,” one of the men told him.

What happened next fills him with remorse.

“I tried to reason. I was like, ‘Hold on. Wait one second.’ I was trying to think, ‘How can I get myself out of this with no harm?’ But it was just too quick. I had to give them my dog. My life was literally on the line.”

As one of the kidnappers took Capone into the vehicle, the other rifled through Justin’s car looking for valuables. Ironically he took only an old security badge, overlooking the wad of cash.

The man then leaped into their vehicle and the two made their getaway, heading north toward Fountain Avenue.

Justin followed them in his Hyundai as they turned the corner and sped ahead.

Still in pursuit, he called 9-1-1 from his car, giving the dispatcher a description of the vehicle and part of the license plate number. The dispatcher told him to go home and wait for Sheriff’s deputies to come and take a report.

“I was literally seconds from finding them,” he said.

Instead, he turned the car around and drove home.

Six patrol deputies were there waiting for him.

One took his statement. Then afterward, another deputy pulled him aside and asked for his statement again.

Then a third deputy did the same.

None, Justin says, were out looking for Capone or the robbers’ vehicle.

“After all that happened, me and my woman went home, realizing that these people just abandoned him,” he said. “We couldn’t let that be.”

Justin and his partner drove all around town, calling his name out, searching down streets and alleys in hopes that the robbers had decided to let him go.

But Capone had vanished without a trace.

Justin knew then that it would take more than an ordinary search to find Capone.

The Campaign for Capone

The next morning, Justin was in touch with all the major news stations — ABC, MSNBC, KTLA News, 97.1FM.

As Capone’s kidnapping was splashed across local headlines, he pushed hard to get the news out through word of mouth.

“I called every person I had in my contacts, reached out to their friends, and kept on them about reposting and sharing, making it a current topic,” Justin said.

He had one goal: “We tried to cause so much attention that it would be harder, if not impossible, for them to sell my dog.”

Then a tip came in.

Capone had been seen walking with someone in South L.A. a day or two after the kidnapping. Justin and his girlfriend rushed into action.

“We headed down there, put up hundreds of flyers, drove up and down every single street, every alleyway, from seven in the morning till midnight. If it was too dangerous, we went to shopping centers in the areas, pleaded our cases to the customers and people living in the community, gave them flyers, and had heart-to-heart conversations, emphasizing that I’m the person who’s missing a dog, and there’s a reward for his return.”

This went on for 21 days.

He e-mailed Mayor Sepi Shyne, who pointed him to Community Safety Director Danny Rivas.

“We talked to him, letting him know that steps need to be taken to ensure not just our safety, but everyone else’s, because this is a current issue. Residents of West Hollywood are getting robbed daily.”

By this time, Justin had started receiving threatening phone calls, the memory of which still haunts him.

“They were calling me from an unknown number, saying things like, ‘I know where you stay, you’re never gonna get him back,’ laughing, playing a song in the background while talking to me.”

Justin asked Rivas for more patrols, or decoy vehicle, or stationary cameras with generators like those positioned in grocery store parking lots.

“They said, ‘There’s nothing we can do,’” Justin said. “I’m a victim of an armed robbery. And you’re telling me, with the budget that you guys have and the access and funding, you can’t spare or help the victims and the residents of West Hollywood? It’s ridiculous. I’ve lived here for eight years.”

He tried everything he could think of, even reaching out to Jack Black and managing to speak to him in person.

“I told him, ‘Mr. Jack Black, I apologize for bothering you. I’m only asking because I’m in real need of help. You have a great fan group, and I’m just asking for your help. If you could reshare or post something to help this guy find his dog, I would deeply appreciate it.’

And he agreed to help, Justin said. But nothing came of it. No posting on Instagram. No sharing the flyer or retweeting the news.

“In my deepest moment of need, I literally almost cried in front of him,” Justin said. “He could have said no, sorry, and walked away, but he took my information and did nothing with it.”

Looking back, he’s glad the people who helped bring Capone home weren’t celebrities, city officials or “supposedly good people” — they were just regular citizens who cared enough to lend a hand.

The Call

Hope dwindled as the days went by.

“We had people giving us tips that they had seen him here or there, and there were sightings. We tried to follow up with them, but they weren’t as accurate as we had hoped. So we would go out there, try to look for him but couldn’t find him.”

The death threats still ringing in his ears, Justin purchased a firearm.

“But can I legally carry it? No, I can’t, because of the laws in Los Angeles County. I applied for a CCW, but with all these restrictions, the interview to get it is a year from now. It’s absurd. How can somebody protect themselves if they don’t have the police to protect them?”

After returning from a trip out of town on Nov. 27, he called up the detectives at the Sheriff’s Department assigned to his case to see if there was any news.

There was.

Something was in motion, they told him. Something that would “yield good results.”

An hour and a half later, he got a phone call from the detectives.

“Can you come pick up your companion?” they asked him.

“Are you kidding me??” Justin said. “Where?”

Survivor’s Scars

It may never be known what Capone’s captors put him through.

But one thing is certain — he suffered.

“He didn’t even recognize me at first,” Justin said. “He was so malnourished, dirty and smelled bad. His fur and ears were infected, and it was just horrible. His eyes were bloodshot red; he looked exhausted, like he had been fighting for his life.”

Justin rushed Capone to the vet the next day for blood tests, exams, x-rays — “you name it,” he said. His ear had a major infection, he was underfed and dehydrated, and was showing signs of depression and anxiety.

“He wasn’t all there,” Justin said. “He’s still having a hard time with digestive problems. He’s literally pooping blood right now because of what he had or hadn’t eaten. It’s a catch-up process now.”

While he doesn’t believe Capone was physically abused, the trauma of being separated from his dad left deep wounds in his mind.

“Capone is usually so full of life, always wanting to play and by my side,” Justin said. “Even if I go to the shower or bathroom, he’s there. He just wants love, care, and to play. But being taken from his owner for 21 days without anything I had given him affected him mentally. Now, when I take him out for a walk at night, he doesn’t want to walk far. He’s cowering behind me, scared. It’s going to take time to heal.”

Justin will never forget the feeling of seeing his baby boy for the first time after the abduction.

“When I looked at Capone, I felt complete,” he said. “I didn’t need to worry anymore because I could see him, and I knew I was going to be able to hold him and not let him go again.”

Staying Safe

In hindsight, Justin says he should have seen it coming, especially after the armed robbery happened at La Boheme just a block south of his apartment.

He grew up in L.A. He knows what it’s like to live close to crime. He just hadn’t realized how much closer it had gotten to his doorstep in WeHo.

Justin hopes his neighbors heed his warnings, hard as they may be to swallow.

“If you’re going out to walk your dog at night, I recommend messaging people to let them know where you are,” he said. “Carry pepper spray. Keep your phone fully charged. Stay on your residential streets, meaning not like Santa Monica, not like Fountain, Sunset, not Melrose, Beverly. None of those. That’s how I was told I became a target. They saw me on a main street. They saw me turn onto my residential street, and they knew where I lived. So that’s when the opportunity presented itself for them to rob me.”

It’s a miracle, Justin says, that Capone is back home — but a miracle he had to work for.

“The great length and effort that we went to putting the word out made it to where Capone was not able to be sold,” he said. “The reason why it took only 21 days to find my dog like that is because of how much I pushed to get him seen so people can say something.”

There are details of the ongoing investigation Justin can’t yet reveal, but the implication is that the suspects have been found and that charges may soon follow.

He believes the sensational aspects of his story were crucial in bringing it to the public’s attention and ultimately in saving Capone.

“For cases like this, if it’s not deemed important, they’re not going to focus on it. We were lucky because the value of my dog was high, and it was getting coverage by the media. But if the tables were turned, and he was a poodle or a less valuable dog, and we weren’t residents of West Hollywood, it’d be a different story. We wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

An unintended consequence of the media blitz is that Capone has become something of a celebrity.

“I have friends, families, acquaintances that are saying their brothers, sisters, or mothers and daughters, and the people they know that are in literally Sweden, have seen the story. People that are in other parts of this world, in Texas, in Colorado.”

“As soon as I had gotten my Capone back, that very next day, I started walking him and a stranger, a complete stranger, stopped me and said, ‘Hey, is that Capone?’ I said, ‘Yeah. How did you know?’ They’re like, ‘Dude. I’ve seen it all over the news. Like, you finally got him back!’”

“It’s astonishing,” Justin said. “And a blessing.”

Justin is seeking help paying for Capone’s recovery. You can contribute to his veterinary bills by visiting his GoFundMe page.