Suspect’s Number Was Up When Victim Took It Down

The two men who robbed Jack Baker’s Santa Ana trailer home Saturday and threatened his wife probably didn’t know that Baker already had their number.

The 71-year-old Baker, a longtime block captain for the Santa Ana Police Department’s neighborhood watch program, was on his way to a police-sponsored children’s track meet about 7 a.m. Saturday when he noticed a 1980 Chevrolet with two men inside cruising through his trailer park on the city’s west side, Santa Ana Police Sgt. Richard Murg said.

Baker flagged down the car and asked if he could be of any help, Murg said. After the driver declined any aid and drove off, Baker, exhibiting his watchful-neighbor instinct, jotted down the car’s license plate number and went on his way, the sergeant said.

When police tracked down Baker later in the day and told him that two men had pried their way into his trailer with a crowbar, threatened the life of his 74-year-old wife, Gertrude, and made off with a videocassette recorder and some jewelry, Baker remembered the suspicious car, Murg said.

Officer Gary Majors, led to an address in Santa Ana listed in the car’s registration, recovered a video recorder, a crowbar and jewelry thought to have been taken from the Bakers’ trailer.

Majors arrested Jose Chavera Muniz, 26, of Santa Ana, who is being held in the Orange County Jail on suspicion of burglary.

The other suspect, described only as a man in his 20s, was being sought.