Two thieves were arrested with a stolen car full of burglarized items, after trying to purchase merchandise at a Morgan Hill store with a lifted credit card, according to police.
A Morgan Hill Police officer identified a stolen vehicle the afternoon of Dec. 15 as it turned into Target, 1066 Cochrane Road, according to a post on the MHPD’s Facebook page. The officer followed the vehicle into the store’s parking lot.
With assistance from more officers who arrived on the scene, police set up a perimeter and were able to locate the suspects and arrest them “following a high-risk felony car stop,” the post says.
The investigation determined the two suspects—Luis Vasquez and Patricia Vaquera—had entered Target and tried to purchase items with a stolen credit card, police said. When that didn’t work, they walked out of the store with the items, without paying.
The stolen credit cards were related to a burglary out of San Jose the previous evening, police said. Officers contacted that victim and notified him that his credit cards had been recovered.
Also recovered in the stolen car was “a lot of mail” that had been stolen, according to authorities. MHPD contacted the postal inspector, who will reach out to these victims and investigate any possible federal crimes.
Furthermore, the owner of the stolen vehicle, a black Honda, told police that the car was full of merchandise she had spent all day purchasing for Christmas presents, according to the Facebook post. The vehicle owner lost all those presents, as well as two car seats for kids.
Vasquez and Vaquera were booked at Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of multiple felonies including car theft, possession of burglary tools, identity theft, giving false ID to police, illegal weapons and narcotics offenses.
A couple of days later, MHPD posted an update that the Morgan Hill Police Officers Association contacted Target and the two parties “put together a covert operation and purchased replacement gifts” for the victimized car owner. That post includes a photo of MHPD officer with the victim, surrounding a pile of new toys and other children’s items purchased from the local store.
