Woman Arrested For Trying To Poison People At Starbucks

A woman from San Jose, California is being held in jail without bail this evening after police claim she walked into a Starbucks and swapped out two Evolution Fresh orange juice bottles in a display case for two similar-looking ones that were later found to contain a “lethal quantity” of rubbing alcohol. It’s unclear why she allegedly tried to poison random Starbucks customers, or whether she planned to stay to watch it happen, but authorities are crediting a random citizen who spoke up for potentially saving lives.

According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the incident in question occurred on Monday at a Starbucks in San Jose. Fifty-year-old Ramineh Behbehanian allegedly entered the establishment around 3:45 PM with a Starbucks bag filled with two bottles of Evolution Fresh orange juice. She allegedly swapped two bottles in a display case for two bottles in her bag. None of the employees saw what she did, but one customer did and immediately alerted the manager, who inspected the bottles and found a “toxic smell” emanating from them. The police were phoned immediately, and one of the employees ran outside and was able to jot Behbehanian’s number down, allowing police to track her almost immediately.

Apart from horrific acts of terror, there are few crimes more worrisome to the general public and to authorities than those geared at random citizens. Those are by far the hardest to prevent because they’re so hard to see coming. Hopefully, the San Jose Police Department will be able to quickly determine exactly what happened and why it happened and make sure it never happens again.

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Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.