Richard Moten, 22, and Rene Villanueva, 20, both of Santa Paula, as well as Anthony Mendez, 19, of Oxnard were arrested. The third suspect taken into custody was a 16-year-old Santa Paula juvenile.Each is suspected of attempted murder of a police officer, among other offenses. According to authorities a .30-caliber rifle was found in the car. The pursuit led to Pacific Coast Highway being closed in both directions for several hours.Santa Paula Police Lieutenant Carlos Juarez said the vehicle driven by the suspects was the same that was carjacked from Logsdon’s Restaurant on October 4. “It was the same car,” carjacked from a woman and her female passenger by a man who appeared to be holding a shotgun when he approached the women at about 9 p.m.The female victim had pulled up and parked her 2002 brown Infinity on the north side of the parking lot when the carjacking occurred. The suspect told both women to exit the vehicle, and for the driver to leave the keys in the car.Juarez said that the suspects are “names we’ve run into in the past, unfortunately,” and he found it “kind of interesting that the car has been gone this long... and I’m not hoping this on anybody, but it could have happened here” if SPPD officers had located the vehicle.
Carjacking: Suspects who fired at officers during pursuit are captured
October 22, 2008
Santa Paula News
Driving a vehicle carjacked earlier this month from the parking lot of a popular restaurant, three Santa Paulans and an Oxnard resident were arrested after a wild chase Sunday that included the passengers firing at pursuing officers and a crash on the western outskirts of Malibu.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesDriving a vehicle carjacked earlier this month from the parking lot of a popular restaurant, three Santa Paulans and an Oxnard resident were arrested after a wild chase Sunday that included the passengers firing at pursuing officers and a crash on the western outskirts of Malibu. The suspects then fled into the hills near Neptune’s Net restaurant, causing the shutdown of Pacific Coast Highway.The pursuit began about 12:30 a.m. Sunday at PCH and Trancas Canyon Road in Malibu, when Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies saw a vehicle parked at a closed gas station and discovered it had been reported carjacked in Santa Paula on October 4.Soon after the pursuit began someone in the Infinity started firing at deputies before the vehicle crashed into parked cars along the highway near Yerba Buena Road in an unincorporated area of Ventura County just west of County Line Beach. After the crash the suspects fled on foot and entered an area containing a small cluster of beachside homes, where they attempted to hide, prompting a REVERSE 911® warning for residents to stay inside their homes until further notification.The LAPD, Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and a K-9 unit responded to the scene and found two of the suspects at about 2:50 p.m. The other two were discovered around 4:25 a.m. All the suspects had been injured in the crash and were checked at an area hospital.
