Police Stop Robbery Suspects, Find Connection to Earlier Carjacking
Published on July 06, 2022
Palo Alto, CA – Police stopped a vehicle with four occupants on Saturday night after a strong-arm robbery shoplift at a grocery store, only to find that the vehicle had been carjacked earlier in the day in Concord. Police turned the two adult carjacking suspects over to the Concord Police Department and arrested the two juvenile suspects.
On Saturday, July 2, 2022, at about 9:28 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call reporting a shoplift that had just occurred at the Safeway store at 2811 Middlefield Road. The caller, a store employee, said that four males had just tried to take merchandise. As officers were responding, they located a vehicle driving northbound in the 2400 block of Middlefield Road, away from the direction of Safeway. The vehicle, a silver 2007 Toyota Corolla, had no license plates on either the front or back. Police attempted to stop the car once it turned westbound on Oregon Expressway. The driver failed to yield until the 200 block of Page Mill Road, and officers detained the four male occupants (two adults and two juveniles) without incident.
The ensuing investigation revealed that the four males had entered Safeway with open backpacks and started removing laundry detergent from the shelves in an apparent effort to put them in the backpacks. When confronted by a store employee (a woman in her thirties) who told them to stop and leave the store, one of the suspects threatened to kill the employee. She backed off to avoid any further confrontation. The four suspects then picked up cooked chicken off the shelf and began throwing it on the ground. Then they left the store. The employee took photos of the suspects while police were being called. Officers located stolen laundry detergent and cooked chicken inside the vehicle.
A check of the car’s Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) revealed that it had been carjacked in Concord earlier in the day. Officers notified the Concord Police Department, who responded to the scene. After further investigation, they took custody of two of the four suspects, both adults, and arrested them for carjacking and conspiracy (both felonies). For more information about the carjacking and the Concord Police Department’s investigation, read their post on their Facebook page about it. Note that since the Palo Alto Police Department was not the arresting agency for the two adults, no further information about those suspects is available from us. Police will be forwarding the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and requesting charges for robbery and conspiracy against both of them. Officers returned the stolen vehicle to its owner.
Police arrested the two juveniles for robbery and conspiracy (both felonies). One of the juveniles, a 17-year-old from Pittsburg in Contra Costa County, was released on a criminal citation to a family member. The other juvenile, a 15-year-old also from Pittsburg, was transported to Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall. He was also arrested for providing a false name to police. In accordance with our standard release of information procedures, no additional information on the suspects is available since they are under the age of 18. We do not release booking photographs of juveniles in such situations.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call our 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.