MOM RESCUES TODDLER FROM CARJACKED VAN; EX-ANGELENO FINDS VALENCIA NO HAVEN FROM CRIME.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Tina Rost was prepared more than most suburban housewives when she faced off against a carjacker Tuesday night. After all, she had endured an armed robbery and mugging when she lived in Los Angeles more than a decade ago.

But it was the steely resolve of motherhood that empowered Rost, 37, to pluck her 2-year-old son from his car seat before the stranger fled in her minivan and later collided with another vehicle.

``I kept thinking, You can have the car - I don't care about that - but you're not taking this baby,'' Rost recalled Wednesday morning, safe inside her Via Alcira home with Griffin, her rescued son, an arm-length away.

The carjacking suspect, Michael Neighbors, 32, of Ventura, remained in lockup at the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles pending his arraignment today in Newhall Municipal Court on carjacking and attempted kidnapping charges, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman said.

Deputies said Neighbors carjacked Rost's 1996 green Dodge minivan in the 24000 block of Oak Vale Drive on Tuesday night and was about to drive off with Griffin in the back seat when Rost re-entered the vehicle and pulled the toddler out, according to Sheriff's Department reports.

As Neighbors headed toward his Ventura home on Highway 126, he was involved in a non-injury collision with another vehicle around 6:06 p.m. near A Street in Fillmore, then continued driving until Ventura County sheriff's deputies spotted and stopped the stolen van near the Seaward Avenue off-ramp on the Ventura Freeway. He was arrested and as of Wednesday was still being held on $500,000 bail, sheriff's Lt. Tim Peters said.

Also, deputies had been looking for Neighbors earlier on Tuesday night around 5 p.m., they said, after responding to a Rotunda Drive home to remove a man under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Neighbors had left before they arrived.

It was around 5:20 p.m. when Rost encountered Neighbors, she recalled.

The mother of four had parked the family minivan outside a private neighborhood pool on Oak Vale Drive and sent her 11-year-old son to get her two other children, ages 6 and 7, from swim lessons.

Griffin sat behind her in his car seat.

``I noticed a man in his 30s walk off the paseos toward the pool area,'' Rost said, describing him as a white male wearing jean shorts, T-shirt and baseball hat. ``He moved very slowly and watched a man and woman as they talked together in the parking lot behind me. He kept hesitating as he got closer to them, as if he was deciding whether to talk to them.''

At the time, the man didn't strike Rost as suspicious, she said, because he appeared to know the man and woman and didn't want to interrupt them.

``Once he finally walked over to them, I thought he was going to talk to them, but the next thing I knew, he opened my door, grabbed my arm and said, `Get out of the car,' '' Rost said.

Rost, who was not hurt, said she quickly did as he commanded while he clumsily climbed into the driver's seat.

In those next few moments, Rost's mind raced. By her assailant's slow and deliberate movements allowed her to take Griffin before the carjacker fled, without putting either of them in serious jeopardy. She yanked open the rear sliding door and took Griffin from his car seat.

``You just let me take the baby first,'' she recalled telling Neighbors, leaving no room for negotiation.

From countless news clips, Rost had learned that a carjacker's sole mission is to take the car, so she figured that the man deputies identified as Neighbors would let her take her son. She added, ``They want the car. They have no use for a baby.''

Tuesday's incident was the third violent crime that Rost has experienced in the last 15 years.

Before relocating to Valencia 13 years ago with her husband, Joseph, she had been mugged in front of her Northridge home and a witness to armed robbery while she worked as a bookkeeper for a grocery store.

``That's one of the reasons why you move up here - to get away from all that,'' she said. ``I guess this just shows it can happen here, too.''

Rost has no doubts that her maternal instincts wouldn't have failed her Tuesday night. ``If he would have driven off, I would have hopped back in the car and somehow figured out how to get out,'' she said.

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Photo: (color in SAC edition only) Tina Rost of Valencia smooches her son Griffin, 2, after the duo escaped safely from a carjacking of Rost's minivan Tuesday night.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News