Crime

A 35-year-old San Jose woman was arrested Sunday night in Gilroy on suspicion of helping a an escaped fugitive evade police this week.

Responding to a tip that a fugitive who escaped from jail Thanksgiving eve was in town, Gilroy Police and Santa Clara County Sheriff's Deputies surrounded the Days Inn at 8292 Murray Ave., but didn't find the suspect.

Every time I hear about a police shooting I think the same thing: if only the people complaining had a chance to walk a mile in a cop’s shoes.I’ve done it and you can too. It will change you forever.Both the Gilroy Police Department and the Santa Clara Sheriff’s have ride along programs where you can do a shift with a cop and see first hand what they face. You will never look at police the same way.I’ve done ride alongs with agencies across the area and I’ve also taken the Citizens Police Academy in Santa Cruz. My conclusion is that we expect the people in blue to be superhuman, but they are, like the rest of us, only human. Most of them, however, border on superhuman in the challenges they face every day and the way they resolve them peacefully.When you consider that most of us get our information about policing from TV dramas where officers solve cases in a half an hour and do impossible things like shoot a bad guy in the arm to make them drop their gun, it’s easy to see that we often judge them much too harshly.You can sign up for a 12-week, once-a-week course with Gilroy Police (info on the GPD website), an opportunity that I strongly recommend. In Santa Cruz I got to do a staged car chase, arrest “suspects” and shoot in the firing range.The first thing you feel driving in a police car, is that it’s like you have a giant target on your back. There are plenty of people out there who hate police, and even though you are armed, you feel like a sitting duck. There’s virtually nothing to stop someone who hates cops and has access to one of the 315 million guns in America from taking a shot. Cops told me they don’t feel like that, but as a civilian sitting in that car, I sure did.The second thing you learn is that police training is incredibly difficult. You will fail often. Do one of their drills where they have to figure out if they are shooting at an innocent or a bad guy, a real life video game, and you realize it takes Olympian skill and judgment to make the right call. It’s much easier to Monday morning quarterback those situations.The next thing you realize is that many of the people you stop are rude and think you are in the wrong, even when it’s clear they are. A good half the people you stop greet you with malice, and frankly, many of them are people we don’t interact with in daily life. They are on drugs, they are criminals, they are violent and after spending a day with them and an officer, you will thank your lucky stars for the officers who deal with them every day.On a Santa Cruz ridealong recently, I watch a 6-foot-5-inch, 300-pound man attack the 5-foot-5-inch cop I was riding with, while yelling racial epithets at him. The officer asked the man to get off the sidewalk blocking access to a pizzeria; the man refused and got belligerent.For a minute, I was scared for my life, but more scared for the officer. I thought the bigger man could easily grab his gun and things could get violent quickly. I was digging in, getting ready to help the officer if he needed it, when in the blink of an eye, the officer had the man down on the ground and handcuffed, like a martial arts master. That was really superhero stuff. Even more amazing was the fact that the officer remained cool, calm and polite with the man, even when the man, an African American, was calling the officer, a Mexican-American who was once an undocumented immigrant, a “wetback” and using worse terms to provoke him. The officer was used to mistreatment and told me he felt sorry for the man, an alcoholic, and treated him kindly all the way to jail. I’m not saying it’s always this way, but I would argue that it is 99 percent of the time. Yes, there are some unjustified shootings and some cops who use the law to benefit themselves. And yes, we need video cameras to help police the police. But in most cases, the cameras will back the police. People will realize that cops don’t go out to intentionally shoot someone and that the cops would prefer to defuse situations without violence, so they can go home to their families at the end of their workdays, just like the rest of us. They have a lot more challenges to face every day than we do.                 

Rosalinda Gerardo loaded up her SUV in her San Martin driveway on Oct. 25 and went inside her house to get her twin 9-year-old girls and her 5-year-old daughter to bring them to school.When she came back outside, the black Chevy Suburban was gone.“I just stood there looking and went, ‘Oh my gosh, what is going on?’” she said. “I thought maybe my husband took it to get gas, but when I called him, he didn’t have it. He walked to work. If it wasn’t happening to me, I wouldn’t have believed it.”Her vehicle was stolen, but it gets worse. The car was specially fitted for her daughter, Jocelyn, who has a rare, painful and debilitating condition in which her flesh calcifies to bone and she can’t function without a wheelchair, glasses, hearing aids and a computer that lets her communicate.It was all in the Suburban.“It was horrible,” she said. I’m just thankful my kids weren’t in the car.”Gerardo reported it to police and took to social media hoping someone could help. Four days later, Gilroy Police came through.An officer spotted the car on Leavesley Road and took off after it. It turned onto Luchessa Avenue where two people jumped out. The driver fled onto Highway 101 and drove off the road, through a fence on ranchland. Officers followed and the Suburban rammed a police car, injuring the officer when the airbag deployed.Police finally surrounded and arrested the suspect, a woman named Valeria Olmos, 22. They also grabbed the two who had jumped out, Izaak Diaz, 23, and an underage girl.They were charged with stealing the car, assault, resisting arrest and violation of probation.What followed was some good news and some bad. The car was totaled, but insurance would cover it.Corporal Lamont Toney found the purple and black wheelchair being towed behind a bicycle by a homeless man. The man told him he got the chair in a dumpster at a homeless camp by Alexander and Eighth streets. But, said Gerardo, it was so badly damaged it couldn’t be used. Searching Olmos’s home, police said they found the $5,000 communication device, but not Jocelyn’s glasses or her specially made $7,000 hearing aids, which were in her backpack.The wheelchair will take months to replace. They have improvised one that allows her to go to school at Blackford in San Jose, but Jocelyn is is in so much pain, she needs her wheelchair’s special padding and design to be able to function.“My daughter can’t sit up or speak,” said Gerardo, who works in San Jose as a mental health caseworker. Her husband is a concrete contractor. “She’s a really fragile child. Imagine you are stuck in a chair and you can’t get up and move around. It’s heartbreaking.”The computer Jocelyn uses with her feet to communicate was OK, but they broke the mount and arm so she can’t use it.“I can’t believe these people had no compassion. You would think they would have a little bit of humanity and see that the car had a wheelchair and toss it out without destroying it.”However, she found some humanity from the Gilroy Police Officers Association, which contributed $1,000 to help offset expenses. She thanked them Sunday, letting them meet her family at police headquarters.“This is why we do our job,” said Gilroy Sgt. Robert Locke-Padden. “To help people like this. We have to see so much and do so much. Sometimes we’re dealing with negative situations where people are getting arrested. It’s really heartwarming where we can do something and see something positive, get something back that was taken from them. It helps to fill your soul. That stuff is really important for police officers.”Gerardo said the officers really made a difference.“They went above and beyond and really worked their butts off. I think more people should give them credit.”  

ShootingA masked bandit with a shotgun shot a 23-year-old man who was parked in a car with a woman at Uvas and 10th Street Friday at 8:15 p.m., police said.The thief approached the car and robbed the couple and then shot the man in the leg. Police are investigating and hoping for leads from the public.Quick response from Gilroy Police officers who used a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, saved the man’s life.“It appears to be a random crime, since we haven’t had anything similar,” said Sgt. Jason Smith. The victim is expected to survive. The only description they have of the robber is that he was in dark clothes and wore a dark mask.Anyone with information is requested to contact Det. Eric Cryar at (408) 846-0335. High speed chaseGilroy Police chased a driver at speeds of up to 100 mph for three miles Saturday and ended up arresting three people.The pursuit started at 8:41 p.m. when an officer spotted a 2001 Honda Accord driving recklessly at First and Wren streets. When he turned on his lights and siren, the car refused to stop.Officers gave chase and finally caught the driver at Cohansey and Monterey Road, when he abandoned the car and ran into a field. They arrested Jeremy Valdez, 26, of Gilroy on suspicion of felony evading, wanton disregard for safety, resisting arrest and driving without a license. Good Samaritans capture suspected thievesFour Good Samaritans who witnessed a group of five suspected thieves running out with items from the Michael Kors store at the Outlets chased them down and were attacked. But it ended well, mostly.The Samaritans, in a Ford F-150, followed the suspected thieves who were in a 2016 Honda Accord, after they saw them running and getting into a car Nov. 2 at 11:24 a.m. according to Gilroy Police.The suspects drove into a dead-end court. The Samaritans stopped their truck in the center divide, intending to call police and get help, when the suspects rammed the truck with their car, triggering the airbags.The suspects ran into a field carrying $4,000 of stolen goods and the Samaritans gave chase catching them and holding them until police arrived.Two of the suspects were adults and three were juveniles. One of the Samaritans and two of the suspects were injured when the car was rammed. All were arrested. They included Alejandro Jacuinde, 18 and David Tomas Puentes, 18.Police Capt. Kurt Svardal praised the Samaritans—“as a citizen”— for following them with the intention of letting police do their job, but warned—as a police officer—that taking action against suspected criminals is dangerous. “They don’t know the crooks,” he said. “They could be armed. You don’t want to have people injured. Our first priority is safety.” Stolen walletA thief stole a wallet from a distracted woman shopping at the Home Goods store on Nov. 4 at 1 p.m. and within minutes used her credit card to buy $2,700 of electronic equipment at Best Buy. Stolen iPhonesTwo suspects distracted a clerk at Walmart while a third broke into a display case and stole eight iPhones worth around $8,000 at 8:45 p.m. Nov. 4. They fled in a rented black Jeep SUV. Child endangermentA woman who was on probation for child endangerment was arrested for driving under the influence at 10:47 p.m. Nov. 5. Anita Acevedo, 22, had a passenger and her 1-year-old son in the car when she was stopped at First and Monterey streets. She blew a 0.2 on a field sobriety test, more than twice the legal limit of .08. Dog biteA woman walking her small dog in the alley between Church and Eigleberry streets was bitten by a Rottweiler at 10 p.m. Nov. 5. When she saw the Rottweiler, the woman picked up her dog and the Rottweiler bit her arm. 

A San Jose man who was driving on a private road in Aromas and reportedly talking on a cell phone, was struck and killed Thursday afternoon by a train at an unmarked crossing, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Gilroyans have had 210 cars stolen this year, up 60 percent over the last five years in the city, something police attribute to the decrease of prison sentences for property crimes.There were 125 cars stolen in the first three quarters of 2011 and the number has increased steadily, with 154 taken in the first three quarters of 2012; 175 in 2013; 174 in 2014; and 199 in 2015. The 210 stolen so far this year covers one less month than the others because the numbers for the whole quarter weren’t yet compiled.“The interesting thing is you look at AB 109, which gave early releases to prisoners and lenient sentences for property crimes, and you see it coordinates with the increase,” said Gilroy Police Department Sgt. Jason Smith.AB 109, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, dropped the overcrowded state prison population by 25,000 over two years. Nonviolent felons without prior serious or violent offenses were sent to county jail, rather than prison. In 2014, the state passed Proposition 47, which reduced sentences for thefts of property valued at less than $950, and cut sentences for drug use, which Smith suggested put more criminals on the street.“You look at the numbers and there’s been an uptick since then,” he said. “I’m not saying that’s it, but I definitely think it contributes to the numbers.”Gilroy Police say most of the cars aren’t hot-wired, but have keys in them or hidden on the outside of the car. Some have been left running to warm up in cold weather or cool in hot weather.“Car thefts are crimes of opportunity,” Smith said. “People leave their keys in the door; they leave them running or have a spare key attached. Thieves know about those spare keys and can find them quickly.”Most of the cars are older models, with less effective computer security systems. Hondas from the 1990s are the most popular. Thieves can use a key they know how to shave to fit those cars.“It’s harder to steal a car without the key,” Smith said. “You have to know how to override a computer system.”To make matters worse, Gilroy has the 17th highest car insurance rates in the state, according to a study by ValuePenguin.com.The average yearly premium in Gilroy is $1,882, or 13 percent above the $1,661 average price in California. For comparison, San Joseans pay $1,393; Los Angelenos pay $1,624 and San Franciscans pay $1,783.Some tips from GPD to keep your car safe: Know your license number. Have it written down or take a photo of it with your phone camera. Many people forget their license number and can’t get it to police right away to help them find the car.Don’t leave your car running unattended, day or night. Car thefts occur at all hours.Don’t leave windows cracked open and park in well-lighted areas at night.To avoid having items stolen from cars—which is becoming more common in shopping areas like the Outlets—don’t leave goods you’ve bought in plain sight. Thieves are canvassing the area, looking especially at rental cars, where tourists store stuff, breaking windows to make a quick steal and finding valuables such as passports.Install an alarm system.         

Two women who were part of a peaceful prayer vigil say they were harassed, intimidated and lied to, and a California Highway Patrol officer trampled their First Amendment rights, because they inadvertently stood on state property to pray the rosary in the shade.

A Gilroy High School junior suffered life-threatening injuries following a three-car accident involving a big rig Wednesday morning.

On Halloween night, four state parole officers went trick or treating around Gilroy, but it wasn’t candy they wanted. Just the opposite.