They came. They saw. They burglarized at least one home. But in the end, four young men from various parts of the East Bay left with a very poor impression of their crime foray into Lafayette.
Our phone lines started to heat up a little after 2 p.m. Tuesday when residents living along or driving by Deer Hill Road phoned to report a sizable police response in the 3300 block there, with several young men in handcuffs. Turns out, four young men burglarized a home while the resident barricaded herself inside – the way they’d parked their car attracting police attention and, ultimately, leading to their arrest.
Chief Eric Christensen, who is on something of a personal quest to stem a series of burglaries in his freeway bisected town, issued this information Tuesday night.
The chief says one of his people (we don’t know the officer’s name but he/she gets a News24-680 Latte for this one) was on patrol in the area when he spotted the pictured car parked in vision-obscuring “gull wing” fashion in front of a home on Deer Hill. The officer blocked the car with his and called for the cavalry. Seeing someone inside the vehicle the officer exited his/her car and approached – no doubt surprised when two men suddenly ran from an adjacent home and tried to get into their comrade’s waiting vehicle.
That didn’t work as help began to arrive and officers rounded up four men, identified as German Alvarado, 19, of East Palo Alto; Jose Buenrostro, 24, of Oakland; Vicente Magallo-Farias, 21, from Hayward, and Isidro Mendez, 24, also of Hayward. As the four attempted to explain themselves Christensen said dispatchers received a call from a woman barricading herself inside the home where the visitors had parked their car. Officers said the four would-be thieves either didn’t know she was home at the time they made entry or had simply just not heard the woman as they approached the home in preparation of the burglary and kicked in her front door.
The homeowner, Christensen said, was “shaken,” but unhurt by the experience.
Police believe the suspects inside the home were alerted to the presence of the police officer by the two subjects in the vehicle – causing them to flee the home when they did. Three of those arrested are currently on felony probation and one was currently out on bail from a previous arrest (not a Lafayette Arrest). All four were booked for burglary, conspiracy, and enhancements for committing crimes while on probation and bail. All four remain in custody at the jail.
