By Lori Stuenkel and Marilyn Dubil
Staff Writers
Gilroy
– The Gilroy police SWAT team searched residences near San
Ysidro Park room by room Wednesday night as a San Jose police
helicopter circled overhead, in pursuit of a man suspected of
stabbing another man earlier in the day, possibly at a Morgan Hill
hotel.
By Lori Stuenkel and Marilyn Dubil
Staff Writers
Gilroy – The Gilroy police SWAT team searched residences near San Ysidro Park room by room Wednesday night as a San Jose police helicopter circled overhead, in pursuit of a man suspected of stabbing another man earlier in the day, possibly at a Morgan Hill hotel.
The search that started with a vehicle pursuit just before 9pm was still in progress during the early morning hours Thursday, with Gilroy and Morgan Hill police department K9 units, and sheriff’s deputies assisting in the manhunt.
The incident began in Morgan Hill Wednesday afternoon, when police received a call from the Extended Stay America on Jarvis Drive. The call was to report a trail of blood in the hotel hallway leading out to the parking lot, according to MHPD Lt. Joe Sampson.
Later, Sampson said Kaiser Santa Teresa Hospital in San Jose called to report a critically injured man who was likely stabbed. Hospital personnel had originally called San Jose police, Sampson said.
“There are conflicting stories at this point,” Sampson said Wednesday afternoon. “We know that the man was brought into Santa Teresa (Hospital) by a friend. There are reports he may have been at (a downtown Morgan Hill restaurant) earlier in the evening. We still don’t know a lot at this point.”
The MHPD investigation of the stabbing led to a vehicle pursuit of a male suspect later Wednesday night, although the circumstances leading up to the pursuit are unclear. Morgan Hill police contacted Gilroy police for assistance about 9pm, as the chase entered the east side of this city. Officers pursued the vehicle with the suspect, who was in the passenger seat, south on Murray Avenue to Chestnut Street, north through San Ysidro Park, through a nearby mobile home park and eventually back around to the intersection of Murray and Chestnut, said Gilroy Police Sgt. Kurt Svardal.
“The car got caught in a driveway, (the suspect) jumped one of the fences and ran,” he said.
Gilroy officers in undercover cars were waiting nearby the location, and the driver of the vehicle was taken into custody.
From about 9:30pm to about midnight, officers with GPD’s Special Operations Group, its SWAT equivalent, searched the rooms and backyards of the apartments and town homes occupying a block of the south side of Chestnut Street, adjacent to San Ysidro Park. For about an hour, the SJPD helicopter searched the area from the skies above, at times shining its spotlight on the neighborhood.
The stabbing suspect had not been apprehended by press time.
Morgan Hill police arrested the driver of the car that initiated the pursuit, as well as a woman who was waiting in the driver’s seat of a car parked nearby.
“She is associated with the case,” Svardal said. “What (Morgan Hill) is charging her with, I don’t know.”
The names of the two people arrested were not available early Thursday morning.
Oscar Flores, night manager of the Extended Stay, said there were no reports to management of an altercation or disturbance and said he did not know the name of the victim or if he was a guest in the motel. The motel does not have security cameras in the hallways or a security guard on the premises, Flores said.
