Bad Break-In for Pair of Alleged Burglars

Deputies say two Oxnard men picked the wrong building to burglarize Thursday night in an alleged attempt to steal copper wire out of an abandoned Ventura County Sheriff’s Department station. The men were arrested about 11 p.m. at the building at 2201 E. Olsen Road, only a few hundred yards from the new east county sheriff’s station, said Det. George Masek.

The old building has been burglarized before, Masek said, by thieves who strip the structure of valuable cooper wiring. Masek said the brashness of breaking into a building right under the noses of sheriff’s deputies did not surprise him.

“When there’s money involved there’s no boundaries of what some of these guys are prepared to do,” he said.

The men, Robert Fowler, 35, and Gregory Sneed, 33, were booked into the Ventura County Jail on suspicion of burglary. Bail was set at $10,000 each, a jail spokeswoman said.