SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE LEADS TO POLICE ENCOUNTER

WeEscalon – February 03, 2018.

News Release By Escalon Police Department.
On February 2, 2017 at approx. 1:03 PM, Officer Poortinga saw a male Hispanic subject park a black and white Ford pickup with Texas plates in front of a residence in the 1300 block of Yosemite. Officer Poortinga at that time was parked in the adjacent parking lot. The pickup in question was the same vehicle that he had contact with on January 16, 2018. At that time, he found a loaded handgun in the vehicle and arrested the driver.

The subject who exited the pickup was not the same subject he arrested on the 16th. The subject was looking at him, appeared nervous walking quickly up to the residence. The subject tried each of the doors at the location and found both locked. After finding them locked, he slid open a window on the west side of the duplex and entered the duplex through the window.

Finding this unusual, Officer Poortinga attempted to determine if the subject lived at the location. Upon making contacted, the subject refused to identify himself or exit the duplex. He claimed it was his girlfriend’s home, but she was not inside at this time. Sgt. Flores who arrived on scene continued to try having the subject come outside speaking to him in both English and Spanish. The subject refused to but did provide a name for his girlfriend.

We began trying to locate the girlfriend to confirm his story and his identity. At approx. 1:50 PM, a female who was identified as the girlfriend arrived. The subject would not open the door for her, and made her stand outside the window to talk to him and us. She did say the male subject was her boyfriend. It appeared she did not have a key to enter the house or if she did, refused to use it while we were present.

We finally were able to obtain a name for the subject, in using this information we could not locate any identifying information via our systems, and nothing was found to indicate he had a valid California driver’s license. Due the evasiveness of the subject, the lack of valid identification, and lack of a valid driver’s license, we told the subject his vehicle was going to be towed due to him being an unlicensed driver.

As we turned our attention to the pickup, the subject unlocked the front door and allowed the female into the duplex. A short time later approx. 2:10 PM, the male subject exited the door quickly walked to the rear of the duplex in southerly direction, and immediately began to jump fences and run eastbound from the location. It was about this time that Officer Poortinga located a loaded Glock .40 caliber handgun in the pickup between the driver’s seat and center console.

Officer Poortinga and Sgt. Flores began to pursue the subject on foot. Assistance from the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office and Ripon Police Department was received and we conducted a search for the subject. As this was taking place, our dispatch was receiving calls that a subject was seen running eastbound at various locations. The last location we received a report was in the area of Yosemite and Sierra.

After approx. 50 minutes of searching the area, and various individual locations we were unable to locate the subject. When Officer Poortinga completed his inventory search of the pickup, he located various amounts narcotics and evidence of sales in a container on the passenger seat of the pickup. The subject is described as a Hispanic male adult, 35 years of age, 5’10” tall, 170 pounds, short brown hair, with a goatee and moustache trimmed short. Last seen wearing a black t-shirt and tan pants.