SAN CLEMENTE : Police Experience Quirky Thanksgiving

On a night when most people were giving thanks and eating turkey, police officers here were treated to some unusual fare.

Take the case of Antonio Ramos Santiago, 38, of Tijuana, who was taken into custody on suspicion of auto theft.

Officers saw Santiago break into a car and duck behind the steering column. When the officers approached him and asked him what he was doing, he reportedly said: “I’m stealing this car.”

“He came right and said it,” Sgt. Willie Moreno explained. “At least he was honest.”

Then there were the arrests of Edmundo Vasquez, 23, and Aldo Quinonez, 24, both of San Clemente.

According to Moreno, Vasquez, who was driving a black Chevrolet Camaro with Quinonez as his passenger, sideswiped a parked car and then crashed into a fence in a front yard.

Both men got out of the car and surveyed the damage. Seconds later, Quinonez allegedly sat behind the steering wheel and drove away with Vasquez as his passenger.

“One of our officers was in the area and stopped them about fifty yards away from the scene,” Moreno said. Field sobriety tests were conducted and both men were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

“Getting two drunk drivers out of the same car doesn’t happen too often,” the sergeant said.

Other calls included the arrest of a woman who allegedly stabbed a female friend, taking into protective custody two people who threatened to kill themselves and the arrest of a man who assaulted his girlfriend’s former boyfriend.

“They invited the (ex-boyfriend) over for Thanksgiving dinner, and the current boyfriend punches him out,” Moreno said.

San Clemente officers, who usually see limited action at night, were swamped with more than 35 calls for service Thursday night and Friday morning.

“It was a weird and wild night,” Moreno said Friday. “And there wasn’t even a full moon out.”