California driver gets guns drawn on him after dealership mistakenly reports car as stolen

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. - A car dealership's clerical mess-up ended up placing an unsuspecting driver in a traumatic situation.

The driver, Jamie Rodgers, had guns drawn on him by Orange County Sheriff's deputies. The reason? Deputies received reports that the car driven by Rodgers was stolen and that he was considered "armed and dangerous."

Rodgers was caught completely off-guard when deputies pulled him over the way they did.

"I was scared, terrified I was going to die. I've never had assault rifles just lined up, pointed at me. And my every move is essentially my last," Rodgers said.

Here's the thing – a loaner vehicle driven by Rodgers was not stolen. The dealership assigned the car to Rodgers since his car was under repair. But then that same dealership lost track of the paperwork, lost the paperwork and then reported the loaner SUV as stolen.

The mix-up left Rodgers being caught in a near-death experience.

The dashcam video from the OC sheriff's department showed deputies spotting Rodgers driving the SUV on the 73 roll road nearly three years ago. He pulled over. He complied during the traffic stop and the heavily-armed deputies rushed towards Rodgers' direction.

The tense encounter left Rodgers feeling like he was going to die.

"I don't know what's going on. My heart is pounding. My my palms are just like, dripping sweat," he recalled. "I wanted to see my family again. That's what's going through my mind."

All this, stemming a clerical error. Rodgers has since filed a lawsuit against the car dealership involved. 

"This shouldn't have happened. So it was reckless. There was negligence. They are saying that they just misplaced a sheet of paper when they were moving files around," Rodgers said.