With his cheek pinned flat against the asphalt and a San Benito
County sheriff’s deputy holding him there, the recently apprehended
suspect’s ecstasy high was, perhaps, fading fast.
With his cheek pinned flat against the asphalt and a San Benito County sheriff’s deputy holding him there, the recently apprehended suspect’s ecstasy high was, perhaps, fading fast.
Fading because over the course of the previous 60 seconds his luck had turned against him. He had gone from walking south on Memorial Drive toward Sunnyslope Road, to running west on Sunnyslope toward anywhere, to throwing his remaining “lady-stamped” ecstasy pill toward the sidewalk, to being held down, handcuffed and driven in a sheriff’s car to the San Benito County Jail.
Just another Friday night for Detective Johnny Pena and Sgt. Rick Uribe of the sheriff’s gang task force.
The Free Lance tagged along with the two-person, heavily-armed unit that, every weekend, hits the streets looking to make living in Hollister as unpleasant as possible for local street gangsters.
The suspected Norteno gang member who found himself jailed after Friday’s encounter had been arrested a month earlier for possessing ecstasy, deputies said.
“We deal with the same guys night in and night out,” Uribe said. “Some of these guys are fifth-generation gangsters. You can’t change guys like that.”
San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill recently called gangs Hollister’s No. 1 problem and has vowed to capture and jail the local trouble makers.
“When it comes to gangsters, displacement is OK,” Hill said. “If you make life so miserable here that they move somewhere else and become someone else’s problem, that’s OK. So if I can’t get them into my jail, I’m going to get them out of my county.”
The deputies bristle from head to toe with enough gear and weapons to start a revolution, including a tactical vest, Taser, Glock 40-caliber handgun, M-4 tactical rifle, pepper spray, flashlight, radio, “Leatherman” tool, collapsible baton, extra magazines, night vision binoculars and three sets of handcuffs.
Pena, 29, leads the team. The burly, goatee-bearded deputy is calm and measured, easy to a laugh but quick to business, with a nerve-wracking stare and a heavy foot for his cruiser’s gas pedal. Uribe, 26, is a clean-cut and lanky Hollister-raised local with a perpetual sense of humor and a knack for quoting movie lines to go with his quick feet on the chase. Together the two balance out into a crime-fighting unit who track down some of the county’s most dangerous people and have fun doing it.
Fear factor
Friday night began with a short briefing at the sheriff’s office including a meeting with Hollister police to coordinate efforts for the night’s patrol. But before long, the team was on the streets and within 25 minutes had stopped a pickup truck on the corner of Live Oak and Plum Tree drives. With guns drawn, the deputies shouted at the four people inside to keep their hands on their heads. Slowly, one by one, each person was brought out of the truck, handcuffed and interrogated. Two well-known male Nortenos and two females were in the vehicle. Each was separated and questioned for about 35 minutes while three other deputies arrived, searched the truck and identified everyone. In the end, all four were released but not before Uribe promised to meet them again soon.
“Every time I see you, this is going to happen,” Uribe said to a short Hispanic male with “Miranda” tattooed in old English script across the back of his head. “That goes for everyone here. I know who you are, I know this truck and I’m gonna pull you out of it every chance I get.”
It was only 15 minutes later that the deputies happened upon the suspect, who they ended up chasing, walking along Memorial Drive. The rail-thin, 20-year-old Hispanic male was wearing the classic red and white of the Norteno street gang and when the deputies pulled along side him and asked to talk, he immediately ran. But not far.
Off to the D-Pod
San Benito County Jail has the feeling of an old hospital. Pasty blue-and-white walls surround clean and empty floors all the way back toward the “pods” or permanent cells. In the jail’s control room, a lone detention officer watches a patchwork of video monitors and electronic controls for the six pods that house male and female inmates, some awaiting trial, others serving sentences.
There, the suspect was placed into the “D-pod,” a jail within the jail reserved for gang members and trouble makers who can’t abide by the rules. Inmates in the D-pod are kept inside their cells 23 hours a day. It was here, not for the first time, that the suspect was searched, questioned and photographed before being led to his cell to wait out his time until he either went to court or got bailed out.
After booking that suspect, deputies tried to track down Lauren Pence, a man wanted for kidnapping-related charges last known to live northeast of Hollister on Los Vibros Road. Before they left, the deputies loaded their M-4 semi-automatic rifles and unzipped the cases should they need them quickly. They went over Pence’s criminal history, his known vehicles and instructed deputy Matt Soto to send his German Shepherd K-9, Deputy Dix, after anyone fleeing the house.
When the team of five deputies arrived at the three-house property and spotted his truck, the only person they surprised was his mother who came to the door to inspect the gun-toting authorities swarming the lawn.
It seems he moved to Sacramento.
“Well, if he comes back, we’ll be waiting,” Pena said. “The sheriff’s office is always ready.”
