A perimeter was set up and the suspects were contained when they ran into the brush, but Senior Officer Ryan Smith and his K-9 partner Rex started a search. “A female was flushed from the brush” after she “probably heard them and knew the K-9 was on the job, or just knew law enforcement was in the area and tried to flee on foot.” Sergeant Ish Cordero detained the woman, who was placed under arrest.Two male suspects are “outstanding, but we’re working on leads to identify them,” said De Los Reyes. Arrested for suspicion of residential burglary and possession of stolen property were Bernardo Tobias, 50, and 39-year-old Irene Sanchez, both of Santa Paula. Sanchez was also arrested for an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. Both were booked and “lodged in Ventura County Jail.”The theft of recyclable materials continues to rise, with widespread reports of street lengths of copper wire being pulled from traffic signals to theft of statues. Law enforcement officials are finding that very often the thieves are stealing and recycling the materials to feed their methamphetamine habit.Senior Officer De Los Reyes said that rising value of non-ferrous metals - 75 percent in some cases - and the ease in turning the stolen material into cash have led to the rise in thefts. “Thieves can take it and flip it for a profit relatively quick” by recycling, he noted.
Two arrested for theft of copper wire, plumbing from vacant home
May 07, 2008
Santa Paula Police Department
Two people were arrested Thursday on residential burglary charges after the owner of a home undergoing renovation was notified by a neighbor that people were inside the residence stripping the property of recyclables, according to a Santa Paula Police Department spokesman.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesTwo people were arrested Thursday on residential burglary charges after the owner of a home undergoing renovation was notified by a neighbor that people were inside the residence stripping the property of recyclables, according to a Santa Paula Police Department spokesman. Senior Officer Joey De Los Reyes said the April 30 report of strangers inside the vacant came to the SPPD at about 12:30 p.m. “from the individual that owns the residence,” located at 224 S. Ojai Street.The house is “being refurbished, and in the process the copper wire and tubing for plumbing were being completed this morning,” De Los Reyes said Thursday afternoon. The owner of the rental unit was “essentially notified that a group of suspects were inside the residence,” taking copper based materials.“He drove to the house, and when he arrived they were just getting ready to leave” with the stolen property in their possession. The SPPD was called, and “When we arrived we were able to detain one male with a backpack full of doorknob fixtures stripped from the residence... he was arrested for burglary.”De Los Reyes said the owner of the residence saw other suspects flee south on Ojai Road to East Harvard Boulevard. “A description was put out for the outstanding suspects, and at one point” Detectives Wally Boggess and Alan Macias “saw individuals matching the descriptions at the bottom of the Santa Clara River” just east of Santa Paula Airport near the 12th Street Bridge.
