Courtesy Capt. Monica McGrath
Hello everyone and welcome to our Farm Watch for this July/August edition.
As I write this, I was notified at our patrol briefing at Fillmore P.D. this morning, that our Bardsdale area was hit again with 2 additional metal thefts. On a positive note however, we have had some success in catching these thieves especially when our Farm Watch subscribers call in suspicious activity or persons that do not belong on their property. (see attached Press Release).
I hate to sound like a broken record, but this truly is the hot ticket for crime all over our county and throughout the state. In reviewing our crime maps and charts attached, total crime is actually down significantly for this same time period as last year. This of course, is of no comfort for those businesses and personal ranches that have been targeted repeatedly with metal thefts.
Detectives around the county have reported that some thieves take ranch equipment and instead of trying to get money from a re-cycling operation, they try to sell it to other unsuspecting farms/ranch owners in the area. If someone does approach you to buy a piece of equipment that appears not to be legitimate, please get a good description of the person(s) and vehicle and call the police immediately. There have been several reports of individuals attempting to sell stolen property. Be a good witness and do not overly engage them, however call the police as soon as possible with the description.
Specific Crime Issues of Note for this edition:
Metal Theft Update: This by far is the most problematic area for our residents of Ventura County. All metal is fair game as we have had 11 man hole covers stolen off the streets in Piru. Fortunately they were not taken in areas where pedestrians would potentially injure themselves, however, this is a major theft in our county area. The covers are 3' in diameter with the following imprinted on them: "VC WWD 16 Sewer - Long Beach Iron Works."
In late July probationer Jeffrey Daniel was arrested for theft after Farm Watch members called Det. Hendren from Fillmore and notified police about Daniel stealing scrap metal on Oil Lease property on South Mountain Road. Farm Watch members and Vintage Oil employees assisted the Sheriff's Office in making the case and the arrest. Great work by all involved!!
Moorpark County area: Moorpark Deputy witnessed a theft of rebar in progress from a construction site in the early evening hours. The suspect in this caper was Ramiro Salazar from Pacoima (driving a black Nissan Frontier truck). Ramiro was cooperative and indicated he needed money and was planning on selling the rebar. GOOD arrest by Deputy McCollum from our Moorpark Station!
Somis / LA Avenue area, 2 connex box storage containers were burglarized and tools outside the box were also stolen
Bardsdale Area: this orchard / ranch has been a victim 3 times in the last 2 weeks as thieves target any and all unsecured metal farm equipment. An approximate $8,000 loss was reported: including a tractor, counter weights, cultivating spades/discs, 8 ground tearing metal teeth/claws and 1 metal drive shaft. Very recently we (Sheriff's Office) responded with detectives as suspicious persons were in the area again. We did not catch the thief last night, but I know we will continue to follow leads aggressively and make an arrest.
Telegraph Road - County Area near Santa Paula : during the weekend night hours in mid August, thieves took 100 plastic pots, 5 bales of soil, 2 small gasoline engines used to power agricultural sprayers, and 1 black conveyor belt. All the above was taken from an open storage area.
Contacts: Fillmore Detective Darin Hendren darin.hendrin@ventura.org or 524-2235; Ventura Detective Christine Rettura Christine.rettura@ventura.org 662-6770; Agricultural Crimes Detective, Ray Dominguez at Ray.Dominguez@ventura.org.
Once again, I would like to thank Sheriff’s Crime Analyst Karen Brown who puts together your maps and digests all the crime data so we can effectively catch and prosecute these criminals.
Be alert and always safe!