A Pleasanton police officer was slightly wounded after his patrol car was fired upon by a carload of armed, masked thieves who robbed a local bank and subsequently hijacked a civilian auto at gunpoint, police said Friday.
Events kicked off at 10:41 a.m. as police responded to a reported bank robbery at the Wells Fargo Bank branch at 4767 Hopyard Rd. with one officer falling in behind the suspect vehicle, a white GMC Yukon, as it drove west on Inglewood Drive, according to police.
At the intersection of Inglewood Drive and Hopyard Road the suspects fired at the pursuing officer through the rear window of the Yukon, police said, with rounds from an unspecified weapon impacting the hood and windshield of the police cruiser – disabling the car and slightly injuring the unidentified officer.
At 10:57 a.m. the suspects, all believed to have been wearing masks and numbering between three and four individuals, carjacked a brown Honda CRV, license No. 5USY995, (pictured) on Muirwood Drive at Hillview Court, the suspects fleeing the scene in the carjacked vehicle on Muirwood towards Springdale Avenue.
Police said the Yukon was abandoned at the scene of the carjacking. Ground and air units searched for the hijacked CRV but were unable to locate the vehicle, according to police, and the suspects remain at large.
The unidentified officer was treated for non life-threatening injuries and released. No other person was harmed during the incident, according to police.
The suspects are described as three to four males wearing masks and dressed in dark clothing. No other description could be given as of this writing.
Anyone with information on the robberies or the suspects is asked to contact the Pleasanton Police Department.
Seriously? I’m leaving the suburbs and heading to the big city – to dangerous around here.
Ha! Yes, but at least we can park here before taking incoming fire…
Wow
In Pleasanton? Crazy.
Just finding out about this. Unbelievable.
Do you have flash alerts for Pleasanton?
We do, Bonnie, available on our masthead at the top of this page. Here’s the link: https://news24-680.com/get-the-flash/
The US has largest percent of the civilian workforce unemployed since WWII– but you won’t hear about that in the job statistics since they are not counted in the headline number. Young men make up one of the largest cohorts of this population. Social mobility in the US has literally collapsed since 1980 from 80% then to less than 40% today– meaning that today, your odds of working your way up into a middle class lifestyle by starting at the bottom are much lower here than they are in say Portugal. So there’s a lot of young people on the streets with few decent job prospects unless you’re willing to take a minimum wage job (80% of all jobs created in the US are of this low paid variety since 2008 according to the BLS), or have a STEM related college degree (again, only a tiny fraction) and can work in the tech field. But these young people usually went to horrid public schools and grew up in poor unstable households. So we can spend on schools and community enhancements, or we can spend (a whole lot more BTW) on the criminal justice system and prisons (where in CA it costs $70,000/yr per person to lock them up). This is what you get in a highly unequal winner take all downwardly mobile society– more petty crime, more robberies, more burglaries, etc… My bet is most people will self righteously choose punishment over investing in schools and community services despite the vastly higher costs and wasted potential. Very stupid– because that’s what we’ve been doing and it hasn’t worked out very well for our society.
I agree. My beloved father joined us for dinner last night and we talked about this very thing. It went late into the night and yes, there was a little alcohol involved. But listening to him at length and finding myself nodding at most of the observations he made about the state of our economy and the country confirmed what I have already known for a long time – he is a wise man who has seen much of life and that George Carlin’s joke about American’s ruling class being a “great big club and you and me ain’t in it” is true. We’re luckier than most, but we’re just hanging on.
Thoughtfully written post, Wes, enjoyed reading it.
You’re making excuses for criminal activity. A lot of men have NO DESIRE to work for a living, and they commit crimes because they want to. It’s easy money.
You can go to a lousy school and still make something of your life – if you TRY. You can go to college with student loans. My boss did it. He grew up dirt poor, and he lives in Atherton.
Some of the wealthiest men (billionaires) grew up dirt poor. Ever heard of rags to riches?
I’m not making excuses I’m stating facts. Have you ever heard of the exception to the rule? I gave you the social mobility numbers. I suggest you read about what that means with regard to one’s chances of working hard to become a billionaire, a millionaire, or even doing as well as or a little better than their parents. Luck is a huge factor today. More than it’s ever been. That’s what happens in extremely unequal societies. See: The Hunger Games.
The odds of you making a better life for yourself after growing up struggling in a bad neighborhood and having to go to lousy schools have been going south for decades– as documented in our collapsed social mobility numbers (referred to by many as “The American Dream”). Just as you would expect.
Are you aware that countries like France now have more business startups, by far, than the US?
The rags to riches stories are nice, but they are the extreme exceptions to the rule. Having safe neighborhoods, economically secure families, good schools, and a modern infrastructure are the means by which most people can succeed in society. But that requires revenue and the wealthy in this country have been enjoying lower tax rates– all the while those metrics/hallmarks of a successful society are all in decline.
We can start repairing the damage by asking the wealthy to pay their fair share in a progressive system of taxation (yes, civil society costs money) rather than our present regressive system that has led to a decline in virtually every social-economic metric you care to name– including lifespan.
Ignoring these realities only creates a world with more crime and less and less opportunity.
The wealthy pay their fair share of taxes already. That’s what I “hear” anyway.
We can agree to disagree whether you can attend lousy schools and make something of your life. If you try. You can attend lousy schools and become successful just as easily as you can grow up in a wealthy family and attend excellent schools and be unsuccessful. If you’re lazy.
The biggest difference in a lousy school system is parental influence, and a child’s decision to hit the books or hit the streets. Does the child want to go to college or end up in a dead end job. Or worse yet – prison? Anyone can become successful – if they want to. It’s hard work, and even harder if you grow up poor. But it can be done.
Or you can just get your dad to buy your way into Harvard for $2.5 million. Worked for Jared.
What you’re saying is not supported be decades worth of social-economic data, analysis and trends compiled by legions of experts. I suspect your opinions come more from how you feel than what is true. Everything is not a simple choice as you like to believe. The game is rigged, your bitterness and antipathy toward those less fortunate than yourself aside. The facts are most definitely not on your side.
I’m not bitter. I’m sick of people making excuses for criminal behavior. You have no idea where these suspects are from. They could be from anywhere, including wealthy families.
As far as those less fortunate, I’ve been volunteering with people in need (including the homeless) for over 30 years. What are you doing to help?
Life as an adult is a choice. None of us have any control over what socioeconomic backround we’re born into. We all have a choice as to where we’re at as adults. If you don’t like your status in life – look in the mirror.
Sick of soft on crime enablers.