Vehicle burglary suspects arrested in ‘bait’ operation after chase, Sacramento police say
Sacramento officers arrested two men suspected of stealing “bait” equipment from an unmarked police vehicle and leading authorities on a dangerous pursuit Sunday evening, police said.
Police arrested Alvin Lovett, 24, and Romar Williams, 23, for a variety of crimes including burglary, possession of stolen property, resisting arrest and felony evading.
Officers were notified by dispatch that bait equipment had an “activation” at about 5:02 p.m. Sunday, the Sacramento Police Department said Tuesday in a news release.
The equipment was placed in a locked, unmarked vehicle in a parking lot near the Promenade shopping center in Natomas, according to the release. Sacramento police spokesman Sgt. Vance Chandler said the suspects gained access by “vandalizing” a window of the vehicle. Officers responded to the area and determined the bait equipment had been stolen.
Officers used a GPS tracker attached to the bait equipment to locate the stolen property, which was later determined to be in a Mazda CX-5. Officers in a marked police car observed the Mazda run a red light at the intersection of Bradshaw Road and Lincoln Village Drive in Rancho Cordova and attempted a traffic stop, according to the news release.
The Mazda fled from officers and a pursuit began, but the driver’s erratic maneuvers led ground units to drop the pursuit and a helicopter monitored the suspect vehicle, police said. The driver drove on the wrong side of Highway 50 at one point, the news release said.
The helicopter tracked the vehicle to the 3100 block of Chettenham Drive in Rancho Cordova, where the driver and a passenger continued to flee on foot, the release said. Police and Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies detained the two suspects and located some of the bait equipment inside their vehicle, according to the release.
Chandler said the time between the bait activation and the suspects being detained was at least 30 minutes.
The driver, Lovett, additionally had a suspended license. The passenger, Williams, had existing warrants from the Palo Alto and Milpitas police departments, according to Sacramento County jail inmate information available online.
Chandler said he could not give further details about what exactly the bait equipment is or looks like because that could tip off potential thieves.
“The bait deployment that we deployed during this incident did have a GPS tracker,” Chandler said.
This story was originally published April 10, 2019 at 8:04 AM.
