University Police arrested four suspected car thieves after officers chased – first by car, then on foot – two men whom they saw break into the police impound and drive away in a stolen car early Monday morning.
Two other men who were arrested were found sitting outside the impound in a stolen car.
At about 1:20 a.m., the officers saw two men peel back a section of the fence at the impound lot, University Police spokeswoman Maj. Cathy Atwell said. The two men then broke into a 1991 blue Honda Civic in the lot and drove out through the hole they had just made in the fence.
Officers chased the two men in the ’91 blue Honda Civic until they turned into Rossburg Street, which was a dead-end. The two men jumped out of the car and began to run away from police but were caught and arrested.
Officers then returned to Rhode Island Avenue and stopped a 1992 green Honda Accord, realizing the car had been reported stolen. The two men in the car had been stopped and questioned earlier in the night by police after a robbery happened nearby.
Alberto Manuel Gonzalez-Herrdra, 27, of Bronx, N.Y.; Santos Calletano Herrera, 27, of Bladensburg, and Luciano Mituel Del-lez-martmez, 21, of Bronx, N.Y., were arrested and charged in connection with the thefts. The other man arrested was a minor and his name was not provided.
The officers who saw the men breaking into the impound were members of the newly-formed Special Enforcement Response Team, a squad permanently assigned to tackling alarming crime trends.
“This is why we put the SERT team together,” Atwell said. “It’s good police work.”
Compiled by staff writer Will Skowronski.
