On April 17th, 2014, Officers Stovall and Lawter answered a call from Spring Valley Road for aggravated robbery. The suspect, Carlos Silverio Penaloza, pistol whipped and demanded the gold 2010 Toyota Corolla vehicle at gun point from the owner at his apartment. The car owner didn’t comply at first because his young child was in the car. But after he was hit in the head, he feared for his and his child’s life and allowed Penaloza to steal the car.

The owner of the stolen vehicle reported the robbery to the car company. Luckily, the car came with a tracker, so after the car company activated the tracker and located the whereabouts, 911 was called.

Officer Hunter heard the call come out and called the car company to locate the vehicle. Sergeant Grajeda contacted the North Central Crime Response Team and Deployment to inform them of the series of events. Officer Lawter worked with the Northeast Deployment and Crime Response Team to  relay the vehicle location to North Central. Officer Jernigan and Senior Corporal Massey later on found the car.

A felony traffic stop was all conducted by Officers Jernigan, Lawter, Stovall, Hunter and Senior Corporal Massey.  Penaloza, the arrested suspect, another suspect and a juvenile were taken into custody and interviewed by Crimes Against Persons Detectives. The juvenile was taken to Letot for an outstanding probation violation.  Penaloza had no prior convictions for theft.

No damage was done to the vehicle and it was returned back to the owner. The suspects would not have been caught if it wasn’t for the efforts, communication and team work of these great officers.