Santa Ana Crackdown : Auto-Theft Detail Drives Into Some Rage

The heavyset woman in the 500 block of South Wood Street in Santa Ana was heaving with anger as she ran toward police investigators David Salceda and Perry Francis.

They were just two of a dozen officers who had converged on her street Saturday night, following a stolen-car incident. Two young men in a stolen car who were pulled over by a motorcycle officer had jumped out and run through her house, somehow escaping a network of police vehicles by jumping a back fence.

“I don’t care who you were chasing!” the woman yelled at the two officers. “You had no right to come running into my house. My 16-year-old daughter was inside taking a bath without any clothes on, and your men just came running right in there.”

The woman was so full of rage that two people had to restrain her to stop her attempt to strike a photographer at the scene.

“Later, we’ll send someone back and try to make her understand,” Francis said as the officers drove away in their unmarked car. “But right now she’s too angry to talk to.”

Perry and Salceda were part of a special auto-theft attack team that was combing the poorer sections of Santa Ana on Saturday night, searching for stolen cars and known auto-theft suspects.

Santa Ana Police Chief Clyde L. Cronkhite had agreed to allow reporters and photographers along in the special program.

“Auto thefts are up by more than 20% for the first quarter this year,” Cronkhite explained.

Cronkhite had put special units on the street to attack five major problems identified by Santa Ana residents in a survey: gang activity, street drugs, prostitution, vagrancy, and traffic accidents.

Auto thefts are not on that list. But, Cronkhite pointed out, “we’ve found a strong correlation between gang activity and street drugs to the growing problem of auto thefts.”

For the first quarter of 1988, Santa Ana had 1,061 reported cases of auto theft, compared to 866 for the same quarter last year. Cronkhite’s statistics show that other cities had a higher increase in auto thefts--San Clemente’s doubled, for example. But that was an increase from 31 thefts for the first quarter of 1987 up to 64 for the same period this year.

Santa Ana was the only city to go over the 1,000 mark. Anaheim was next closest, with 696.

Fast-Growing Crime

“It’s the fastest-growing major crime we have going right now,” Cronkhite said.

Burglaries are down about 16%, said Sgt. Bill Bruns, head of the department’s auto-theft detail. But he added that that is because burglars are now finding they can make a faster and better profit stealing a car than breaking into someone’s house.

The targets in Saturday night’s auto-theft attack program were based on the department’s past experience. The officers looked for young male Latinos driving new cars with a piece of paper in the window that was either a dealer’s temporary license, or made to look like one.

“Ninety percent of my caseload right now is juveniles,” Salceda said. “A few years ago it was the other way around--90% adults.”

The two partners had no particular pattern this night. They roamed the streets of Santa Ana, usually in areas known for gang activity, or where known auto thieves lived, and searched for suspicious situations.

They followed two young Latino men in a new car with a dealer’s license plate as it zigzagged through Santa Ana streets. Salceda kept other units informed of its route by radio.

When the car pulled over and the two investigators stopped behind it, the two young Latinos were shocked to see another unmarked police car, three black-and-white police units, and two motorcycle officers surrounding them.

The two checked out OK--they had a can of Mace in the car but could show proof they were authorized to carry it. They convinced the officers that the car belonged to a friend and they had permission to drive it.

Not everyone was so lucky.

Peter, who is 15 and carried a thick wad of bills in his pocket, was hanging out at the Circle K at McFadden Avenue and Flower Street on Saturday night, watching someone selling cassette tapes. For Peter, it was the wrong place to be at the wrong time.

Driver Cleared

Salceda and Francis spotted a freshly painted Volkswagen with no license plates in the store’s parking lot and stopped to check. The driver was cleared--he had taken the plates off for the paint job and had them in the back seat.

But Salceda remembered that a juvenile named Peter was wanted for questioning in two separate auto theft cases. Before he realized it, Peter admitted to Salceda he was aware of one of those cases.

To the young man’s dismay, the officers took him to police headquarters for questioning.

“Why me?” he asked. “I can’t help you guys.”

“Come on, Peter,” Francis told him. “This isn’t going to ruin your weekend.”

When another officer, Larry Wiist, arrived at headquarters, he ribbed Salceda that he nabbed the wrong Peter. The Peter he wanted lived on 3rd Street. This youth lived somewhere else.

Arrested Before

But it turned out that this Peter had been arrested on suspicion of auto theft. The officers questioned him anyway, to no avail, then let him go.

They offered him a ride home. He angrily rejected it.

Anger from the neighborhoods is not new to these officers. The woman upset about the officers running through her house was yelling at the wrong fellows.

Salceda and Francis had been on the other side of the city when the incident occurred. Just before they arrived, they heard by police radio that the suspects had gotten away.

They had just stopped briefly to check when she came running at them.

The officers who had run into her house were operating under “fresh pursuit,” which means they did not need a warrant to come into the house.

“What crime did we commit?” she screamed at Francis, who listened to her patiently.

Glad to See Police

As angry as the woman was--and several others around her appeared angry too--one woman who lives next door told The Times later by telephone:

“Most of us here are glad to see the police. We’ve had a lot of problems here. I want to see all the police cars in this neighborhood I can.”

Most of what happened for Salceda and Francis on Saturday night were dead-ends. License plate numbers of dozens of suspicious-looking vehicles were dutifully called in to the special auto theft dispatcher for the night, Judi Alvarez. They all came up clean.

But Salceda, 40, and Francis, 41, say they love the work.

And they believe the auto theft problem needs a special effort.

“A lot of these young kids simply want a new car,” Salceda said. “And if they can’t afford one, they’ll find one.”