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3 arrested in separate incidents Monday may be linked to other crimes, officials say

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Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies believe three suspects apprehended early Monday morning in two separate incidents occurring at neighboring Verdugo Boulevard businesses may possibly be linked to other crimes.

Lt. Mark Slater, a watch commander for the station, said Monday a deputy was on patrol on the 1900 block of Verdugo Boulevard at around 1:55 a.m. Monday, when he saw a man standing by a closed Wingstop restaurant.

“As he drove by, he noticed a car out front and a guy standing at the window peering in,” Slater said.

The deputy approached the area, saw a front window had been broken and detained a 19-year-old Long Beach man. Four other individuals, who’d been inside the restaurant at the time of the incident, immediately ran from the store and fled on foot.

Slater said deputies searched the area, employing the assistance of the Altadena Sheriff’s Station, Glendale Police Department as well as canine and aerial units, but were unable to locate the other suspects. He added that a vehicle was found at the scene containing items that possibly linked the individuals to a burglary at a Glendale Domino’s Pizza earlier that morning.

“There’s significant evidence we have to go through that was in the car that might help us identify the others,” Slater said. “There (also) may be an investigation into a bigger picture here, not just Wingstop.”

At around 5:30 a.m., about an hour after deputies called off their search for the four missing suspects, a sergeant in the vicinity was flagged down by an employee of CVS in a shopping center that neighbors the Wingstop site. The employee of the 24-hour pharmacy reported two men inside were acting suspiciously.

The sergeant responded, thinking the individuals may have been the missing suspects, but eventually determined their appearance in the store had nothing to do with the incident at Wingstop. Upon questioning, however, the suspects in the CVS were found to be in possession of a vehicle containing items believed to have been stolen from other stores, Slater said.

A 27-year-old man from Tujunga and a 35-year-old Burbank man, were ultimately detained for reasonable cause of receiving stolen property, according to the watch commander, and are currently being investigated for their possible ties to other crimes.

“They may be connected to some thefts in and around the area,” Slater said, indicating it was still too early to determine where those other thefts may have occurred.

“It’s just out of coincidence that it all happened in the same area at the same time frame,” he said of the concurrence of events.

sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine

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