Leave it to Sergeant Jarrod Yee to start off the New Year with a statistic or two in regards to outstanding work the officers at Bayview accomplish every day.
This time it was Officer Giovanni Leyva, Officer Mariano Flores, and Officer Michael Scherer who captured an individual in the Bayview community driving a stolen car, had two outstanding felony warrants for his arrest and was also armed with a fully-loaded, assault weapon detailed out to function as a ‘ghost gun’ with an extended magazine. And, believe it or not, healso had a pretty good stash of illegal narcotics to boot.
Sergeant Yee also noticed that this was the second unlawfully possessed firearm (also with an extended magazine) that these officers had taken off the streets within 48 hours!!
Mission Station officers were, all of a sudden, facing multiple robberies in their district, one after the other. The first one took place in the Noe Valley intersection of the 200 block of Vicksburg at approximately 2150 hours. The second, 35 minutes later near Church and 26th Street. And then, the third robbery occurred near the 4200 block of 22nd Street.
In all three robberies the victims were walking down the street when a dark-colored SUV pulled up and two suspects exited and confronted their victims. In one of the robberies the suspects said they had a gun and, in another they knocked their victim to the ground and forcefully took their property and, in the third encounter they chased the victim and took items from him.
It was then apparent to the officers responding: Officer Paloma Wheelock, Officer Nathalie Peraza, Officer Oscar Vargas, Off Rachel Ramos, Officer Dikii Simpson, Officer Adam Sandoval, Officer Glen Wilson, Sergeant Joe Salazar, Officer Kyle Deidrick, Officer Justin Dombrowski, Officer Michael Rotschi, Officer Irving Garcia, that a series of felonies were occurring. It didn’t take long before the officers who responded were able to set up a perimeter and “drop the net” locating the suspect vehicle with two aboard near Mission and 25th Street.
The suspects were turned over to the Robbery Detail for further investigation.
Officer Giovanny Leyva and Officer Ayrtson Costa were on patrol when they noticed a vehicle in in front of them that matched the car in an incident that occurred the day before where the suspect involved was armed with a gun. They decided to investigate further and found out that the driver was a convicted felon with a suspended driver’s license and an active $10,000 felony warrant out of Antioch.
Further investigation revealed He had a gun in a hidden compartment under the center console that was fully-loaded.
The individual in distress was a young man who was armed with a shotgun and was suicidal and threatening to use it on himself because of a situation that drove him to this point. Probably one of the most challenging of all calls that the officers have to handle. There was some difficulty communicating with the distraught subject and those officers who responded had been trained in just how to approach the individual and other delicate tools available to establish a rapport. But nothing seemed to help.
Officer Arturo Ramirez had volunteered to attempt to make contact of the individual in distress and was successful, to a point. The phones in the area were not that helpful and the subject in question was leery about initiating a discourse with anyone. But Arturo never stopped trying. Sergeant Leong would later make note of the fact in the Commendation he prepared that Officer Ramirez was blessed with “the gift of gab”. But that is just what they needed to save the young man on the other end of the phone.
And it took a while — a long while, but Arturo’s attempts were eventually successful and the individual who called was finally escorted from where he had been staying and transported to a medical facility where he would receive the medical assistance he needed.
So we toast the officers who responded to this call because there is no greater feeling in police work then being able to, literally, save a life!
And you did!!
