PHOTOS: Suspect Arrested; One At Large Wanted In Connection With Palo Alto Home Burglaries
PALO ALTO (CBS SF) -- One suspect was in custody and authorities searched for a second Saturday in a series residential burglaries in the College Terrace neighborhood, Palo Alto police officials said.
Investigators said that on Tuesday morning at approximately 7:55 a.m., police dispatch received a report of an overnight burglary at a home on the 2300 block of Cornell Street. The victim, a woman in her thirties, found two bicycles missing from her garage.
Home surveillance cameras showed two male suspects unsuccessfully attempting to pry open her garage door, and instead prying open a side door to the garage, from which they stole two bicycles and left.
Nearby homes' surveillance footage shows the two men arriving and leaving in a white pick-up truck.
Officers located two bicycles abandoned on the sidewalk a few houses away, one of which belonged to the burglary victim, the other had been stolen from the Stanford University Campus earlier in the day.
Later Tuesday morning, around 8:10 a.m., officers responded to a report of a vehicle that had been stolen overnight.
According to officers, the vehicle that was stolen, a 2010 GMC Sierra C1500 pick-up truck, matched the pick-up truck driven by the suspects as seen in the surveillance footage of the earlier burglary.
Wednesday around 6:30 a.m., police dispatch received a report of an attempted burglary. The victim, a woman in her fifties, reported that the burglar alarm of the rear home on her property had sounded, and she witnessed a man fleeing her backyard.
Officers found the door of the rear house open, with nothing missing from the house, which was under construction.
While checking the area for the suspect, an officer located the stolen GMC Sierra truck parked and unoccupied on the 1300 block of California Avenue.
Officers processed the truck for evidence and returned it to its owners.
Investigators checked surrounding homes' surveillance, and later found the suspect, identified as 31-year-old Gustavo Gomez Alvarado of San Jose, sitting on a bus bench on the 3000 block of Hansen Way.
Alvarado was detained without incident, and was found to be in possession of methamphetamine, narcotics paraphernalia, and burglary tools,
according to officers. Alvarado was also found to be on active probation out of Santa Clara County for vehicle theft and narcotics possession.
He was booked in Santa Clara County Main Jail on various alleged charges. The second suspect in Tuesday's burglaries is still at large.
Police are additionally investigating if Alvarado and the second suspect are connected to a series of occupied residential burglaries that
occurred in October.
Anyone with information regarding these burglaries is asked to contact Palo Alto Police Dispatch Center at (650) 329-2413, email
paloalto@tipnow.org, or send a text to (650) 383-8984.