Watsonville cop helps reunite family in ‘case of a lifetime’

WATSONVILLE, Calif. -- Racing through the streets of Watsonville, police officer Elizabeth Sousa is hurrying to provide back-up. Another officer has caught three young men drinking in an alley on the east side of town.

It’s a minor offense, but he needs to make sure they have no outstanding warrants--and he’s not about to take his eyes off of the trio until Sousa arrives.

It’s Thursday late afternoon, and the call gives Sousa a chance to take a break from talking about the case of Sarani Hernandez. I had been in Watsonville for a day, a small ag town on the edge of Monterey Bay, and had been learning the details about the kidnapping of Hernandez’s two boys for Monday’s story.

As a ridealong, I had watched Sousa counsel a mother whose son was out of control. (“We’ll talk to him,” she said, “but if he isn’t scared of his mom, he won’t be scared of us.”) She canvassed a neighborhood park, where some juveniles were reportedly smoking weed, and she investigated reports of a fire near an apartment complex.

She is a small-town cop with a small-town beat and had managed to stay involved with the FBI in what another officer in her department described as “the case of a lifetime.”

Sousa, 27, has been with the Watsonville Police Department for four years. She works 10-hour days, four days a week, patrolling one of the city’s five beats. At the end of her shift, she writes her reports, which end up in the hands of the detectives upstairs.

She says it’s frustrating not being able to follow a case through all its stages from investigation to prosecution.

Which is why she feels lucky to have been able to work with Special Agent Christina Chesson on the Hernandez case. Sousa served as a translator mostly because of the rapport she had established with the young mother. They met in November, and three months later, Sousa was at the airport when the family was reunited after an 18-month absence.

It was the best possible resolution, said Sousa. “It reminds me why I became a police officer.”

Two of the suspects are in jail in San Jose, awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and seizure and detention of American citizens, and there is an arrest warrant out for the third. Sousa expects to be called to testify, and in the meantime, she has stayed close to Hernandez and her sons, Edwin and Angel.

Sousa plans to stay involved in the lives of the two boys. They are now attending school in the area and are perfecting their skills playing soccer.

As Sousa punches the accelerator down a back alley, she comes upon the other police officer and the three young men, sitting on the curb, looks of boredom on their faces. Sousa steps from behind the wheel. The twilight casts long shadows around her.

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Thomas.curwen@latimes.com