![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/test-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSheena and Cole Burie were visiting San Diego in January 2023 on a family trip when Oceanside police officers stopped them, pulled their guns, and handcuffed the couple.<\/p>\n
They describe it as a traumatizing experience that they\u2019re still dealing with to this day, all because of a mistake by a car rental company.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Cole and Sheena Burie under arrest by the Oceanside Police Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t even look at each other,\u201d Sheena told NBC 7. “We couldn\u2019t move at all. I remember whispering that I love you.”<\/p>\n
The minivan rental they were in had been reported as stolen.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/van.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Another shot of the arrest in Oceanside.<\/p>\n
After the couple was handcuffed and searched, officers looked through the minivan to find the rental contract the couple said should be there, but the officers were unable to find it.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/sheena-handcuffed.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Sheena Burie handcuffed by Oceanside Police officers.<\/p>\n
Sheena said that the whole time, she was thinking about her daughter, whom they had just dropped off at a shopping mall with a friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my huge fear: I just dropped off my kid, I\u2019m thousands of miles away from home. What is going to happen?\u201d Sheena said she asked herself.<\/p>\n
About a half-hour later, police were able to confirm the Buries were not in a stolen vehicle and released them from custody.<\/p>\n
According to a police report, dispatch was able to contact Payless Car Rental and confirm the vehicle was no longer stolen. The report said the company never contacted police to remove the van from law enforcement’s stolen-vehicle system.<\/p>\n
NBC 7 Responds reached out to Payless Car Rental. In a statement, it said:<\/p>\n
\u201cPayless and its independent franchises each have safeguards in place to prevent unnecessary notifications to retrieve rental vehicles. Unfortunately, these protocols in this isolated incident failed. Our franchisee has apologized to Mr. and Mrs. Burie and refunded them for the rental.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payless also pointed out that if the Buries had the rental agreement with them at the time they were pulled over, they could have cleared everything up quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2023, Oceanside Police did not respond NBC 7 regarding the incident, but in a statement sent to NBC News Now they said “the officers involved in this case met the expectations of the department in their conduct. They were courteous throughout this incident and explained their reasoning as they were able.”<\/p>\n
Civil trial abruptly ends just as it was getting started<\/p>\n
The Buries filed a civil lawsuit against Payless Car Rental for negligence and emotional distress. The trial started on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
However, right after opening statements, both sides agreed to settle for $350,000.<\/p>\n
The Buries told us they\u2019re relieved that it\u2019s over, but the money can\u2019t repair the emotional distress that was caused by the police stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy emotional state, it was just unhinged,\u201d Sheena Burie said, standing next to Cole. \u201cAnd Cole didn\u2019t know how to deal with it, he sort of shut down, we just never could come together and have any sort of agreement in any way. So it led to our separation and long, drawn-out divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n
In opening statements, the lawyer for Payless Car Rental said the previous renter of the minivan turned it in late and without checking it in, and it was mistakenly placed back in rotation.<\/p>\n
The company has apologized to the Buries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheena and Cole Burie were visiting San Diego in January 2023 on a family trip when Oceanside police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3282,3283,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-2430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-oceanside","tag-responds","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}