Two men stole a cash machine from a Morgan Hill gas station,
then drove down the road to Prunedale and attempted a similar theft
at a liquor store before crashing and abandoning their getaway van,
police said.
Two men stole a cash machine from a Morgan Hill gas station, then drove down the road to Prunedale and attempted a similar theft at a liquor store before crashing and abandoning their getaway van, police said.
Monterey County Sheriff’s Office authorities arrested one of the suspects who tried to flee on foot shortly after the crash early this morning, and recovered one of the stolen automated teller machines inside the wrecked vehicle. Arrested was Kevin Bazar, 27 of San Leandro, according to Cmdr. Mike Richards of the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. Bazar had about $300 in cash on him when he was arrested, and Richards said the money might have been removed from one of the stolen machines.
The first theft happened about 1:05 a.m. Wednesday at Morgan Hill Gas, 17905 Monterey Road, according to Morgan Hill Police Sgt. Jerry Neumayer. Police responded to a security alarm from the gas station, but the alleged thieves were gone before officers arrived.
The two men, driving a white Ford Econoline van, backed up to the front glass door of the business and smashed a window, Neumayer said. Police think the suspects tied one end of a towing strap to the ATM, which was about 4-feet tall, and tied the other end to the van. They then drove the van forward, pulling the machine out of the floor inside the building. The machine “bounced around inside” before it was pulled completely out the door, Neumayer said.
“They broke it apart at the scene, and were able to get away with the money inside (the ATM),” he said. Police think the theft took less than five minutes.
The cash machine stolen in that incident has not been recovered.
MHPD later received a call from the California Highway Patrol, about 2:45 a.m., reporting they found a similar van crashed and abandoned, with a cash machine inside, in Prunedale, Neumayer said.
That machine was stolen from Tom’s liquor store, on San Miguel Canyon Road in Prunedale, about 2:30 a.m., Richards said. Believed to be the same suspects involved in the earlier theft in Morgan Hill, the alleged thieves pried open the front door of the Prunedale shop with a crow bar. They also used a towing strap to pull the machine out of the inside of the store with the vehicle, Richards said.
Some bystanders witnessed the theft at the liquor store and followed the van in a separate vehicle, Richards said. The driver of the van, attempting to flee the car in pursuit, lost control and crashed into an embankment, Richards said.
They abandoned the van and ran. Witnesses called 911 from a nearby phone. Monterey County authorities soon caught up with Bazar and arrested him, Richards said. The sheriff’s office also received an alarm call from the broken-into liquor store.
One more suspect, described only as a white male adult wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, is still outstanding, Richards said.
Only one ATM was found inside the crashed van, and Richards said it was the one from the Prunedale break-in. The machine from Morgan Hill Gas has not been recovered, and the suspects may have removed the cash and dumped the machine in an unknown location.
A surveillance video from Morgan Hill Gas briefly shows the van backing up to the store’s front door, and two suspects exiting the vehicle, Neumayer said.
