Photo: stolen car recovered
If a car were a horse and Westminster, California, were a town in the Old, Wild West, a stolen vehicle incident on November 25th, 2018, would have fit right in.
That evening, a concerned citizen in the present-day Westminster called the city’s police department and alerted them to a reckless driver in the Goldenwest area of the city.
The driver of the vehicle was reportedly driving erratically, even having driven onto the railroad tracks near the Hoover Street / Trask Avenue area.
Upon catching up with the driver, the Westminster Police Department officers learned that the car had been stolen earlier in the day in Los Angeles. Westminster, which is located in northern Orange County, is about 30 miles south of LA.
The WPD conducted a so-called high-risk, or felony, traffic stop on the vehicle after the driver ran more than one red light. When the driver heard a police K9 barking in the background, he complied with the officers and was taken into custody without incident.
Closer inspection of the vehicle showed two bullet holes in it and a broken-out window, both of which the driver could not explain.
He was also unable to give reason for why he had stolen the car, a white Toyota Yaris.
Initial investigation revealed that he had been arrested for numerous felonies in the recent past, including assault with a deadly weapon, three stolen vehicle arrests, grand theft, domestic violence, weapons charges, burglary, drug charges, resisting arrest and fraud. Following the November 25th incident, he was once again booked on multiple felony arrests.
The name of the driver has not been released and the WPD is carrying out further investigation, due to what it called the “suspicious circumstances” of the incident.
