Weapons drawn, a team of Morgan Hill police waited out what they
perceived was a potentially dangerous situation Thursday morning on
Monterey Road in north Morgan Hill before using
”
stun bags
”
to shoot out the window of an abandoned vehicle.
Morgan Hill
Weapons drawn, a team of Morgan Hill police waited out what they perceived was a potentially dangerous situation Thursday morning on Monterey Road in north Morgan Hill before using “stun bags” to shoot out the window of an abandoned vehicle.
Officers later apprehended a woman who asked them for a ride to the vehicle in question which she said contained a friend’s belongings. She was not arrested and was later released.
Beginning at approximately 9:30 a.m., Monterey Road was closed to traffic for approximately one hour between the intersection of Old Monterey Road and Cochrane Road as officers worked out a strategy when they believed there were two suspects barricaded in the car. The officers did not know if there were weapons in the black Chevy, or why it was parked on the side of the road.
Police first demanded anyone inside the car roll down the window so they could see and talk to them, but there was no response.
The incident began when a passerby called Morgan Hill dispatchers to report a sedan-type car on the southbound side of the road just south of the railroad trestle that was partially in the roadway. When officers arrived on the scene, they found the black Chevy with heavily-tinted windows. On calling in the license plate number, they learned the plates had been reported stolen.
Officers thought the car might be occupied.
“Initially, officers thought there were two people inside,” Morgan Hill police Cmdr. David Swing said Thursday. “It was difficult because of the tinted windows and the stuff inside, and there was no response to officers’ commands to roll down the windows.”
The decision to close the road to traffic was made for safety purposes, he added.
“It was for the safety of everyone involved, we don’t want to expose the public to potential risk of carjacking, if the suspect decides to run, and we don’t want to expose suspects to risk if they run out into traffic, and we don’t want the officers, who will be focused on the situation, to have traffic driving by around them,” he said.
If there had been people inside the car with weapons, there was also the possibility of an exchange of gunfire, he said.
Officers decided to use “stun bags,” which are similar to bean bags, which are shot from a special gun and are not considered lethal, to break the car’s rear passenger window. Unfortunately, Swing said, the heavy tinting material held the shattered glass in place so an officer had to approach the Chevy to clear out the broken glass.
No one was in the vehicle, but it was filled with large bags full of belongings.
The woman who was detained was attempting to obtain the belongings, Swing said. While officers were waiting with guns drawn, officer Max Cervantes was at the intersection of Monterey and Cochrane roads to divert southbound traffic when he noticed a woman getting out of a silver car in the parking lot of Starbucks. She asked him if she could get to a car that was parked on Monterey Road to get some belongings out of it. She told Cervantes her friend’s car had broken down and the friend called her to ask if she would get the items from the car. She was given a ride to the car and later taken to the station.
The incident is still under investigation, Swing said. Investigators are looking into the question of the stolen plate, who owns the items in the car and the car itself.
