Burglary Suspect Seized Amid Cheers

Residents of a Saticoy neighborhood Friday morning helped officers corral a teenage boy suspected of burglarizing 12 cars, then stood outside their homes and cheered after the boy was captured, police said. A second suspect had been arrested in an earlier search.

Ventura police mobilized as many as 12 officers and a police dog and enlisted the aid of a Sheriff’s Department helicopter in the two searches.

The incident began about 4 a.m. when police, who had received a report of two people tampering with vehicles in the 1600 block of Harper Street, found several vehicles with windows broken and their contents ransacked.

The officers saw two youths and chased the pair through backyards, over fences, into the Santa Clara River bottom, down ravines and through orchards before losing the duo in the early morning darkness, Sgt. Gary Adkinson said.

From 4 to 6 a.m., every on-duty officer in the city--seven officers plus a police dog--searched the neighborhood. More officers joined the search as they came on duty. One of the burglary suspects was tracked down at 6:30 a.m.

The search for the other youth was called off after three hours, Adkinson said. But the chase was on again about 9 a.m. when a resident in the 1700 block of Arroyo Seco Drive reported seeing a person matching the suspect’s description.

The first officer arrived three minutes later, spotted the suspect and gave chase. Six other officers cordoned off the neighborhood, while a helicopter joined the search and residents and joggers updated police on the suspect’s location.

After a yard-to-yard search, police found a boy hiding in shrubbery in a backyard and arrested him amid the cheers of neighborhood residents, Atkinson said.