Popular Oakland baker Jennifer Angel, the 48-year-old owner of Angel Cakes in the historic Gingerbread House, was in critical condition after a Monday incident in which she apparently tried to chase down thieves who stole something from her.

Angel was in her vehicle Monday afternoon, pulling out of a parking spot in the garage of a Wells Fargo branch on the 2000 block of Webster Street, when a thief smashed the passenger side window of her car and grabbed something, as the Chronicle reports. It's not clear what they took, but Angel apparently got out of her car and chased the suspect who ran into a getaway vehicle.

Angel's fiance, Ocean Mottley, tells the Chronicle that she likely got caught in the door of the moving getaway vehicle, and was then dragged 50 feet. She suffered multiple head traumas before falling in the middle of Webster Street.

According to Mottley, a witness saw some of this occur, and picked up Angel's purse and cellphone at the scene.

Angel was reportedly unable to respond to commands at the scene and was immediately put into a medically induced coma. She remained in critical condition as of Thursday.

"She's on life support and she's probably not going to make it," said friend Jeremy Smith, speaking to KTVU. Angel's mother has reportedly traveled from Ohio to be with her daughter.

"I’m devastated," said Mottley, speaking to the Chronicle. "I can’t sleep because I can’t stop crying."

Update: Jen Angel died on Thursday, February 9, at Highland Hospital in Oakland.

The story is tragically similar to one that occurred in Oakland on December 31, 2019, when 34-year-old Shuo Zeng was killed while trying to chase down two laptop thieves. The two suspects were ultimately convicted of murder and manslaughter charges in 2021.

Friends have set up a GoFundMe to help with medical expenses, and "various expenses that may arise."

Angel opened her bakery in 2008, in the building that had long been the home of TJ's Gingerbread House, a Creole restaurant, until 2007.

Friend Michelle Nogales tells KTVU that the bakery was "a huge part of her life," and "She had such a hard time keeping it going during the pandemic... [but] it was so important to her to keep it going, to keep the jobs for the people that she supported."

Anyone with information about the robbery incident is asked to call the Oakland Police Criminal Investigation Division at 510-238-3326.