Woodland Police arrest boy, alleged ‘validated gang member,’ after K-9 finds handgun
Officers with the Woodland Police Department’s gang task force arrested a juvenile Tuesday afternoon after a brief pursuit and search by a K-9 turned up a handgun and ammo, authorities said.
Patrolling officers spotted the boy, whom they recognized as a “validated gang member,” riding a bicycle on Bright Day Drive around 2:45 p.m., the Woodland Police Department said in a Facebook post.
The boy immediately ditched the bike and started to flee from officers, jumping over a nearby fence, the post said. Officers located and detained him after briefly setting up a perimeter.
A K-9 unit responded to the scene, and a K-9 named Chase located a handgun with a high-capacity magazine, according to the Police Department post. Officers located ammunition for the gun in the same area.
The minor, who was not identified, was arrested and set to be booked into the Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility on several charges, including illegal possession of a firearm, police said.
The arrest is Woodland’s third reported incident since Saturday night involving minors and firearms, two of them reported on Bright Day Drive. Officers responded to the residential street around 9 p.m. Saturday to reports of a shooting in which two boys were caught in gunfire as they exited their vehicle; one was struck and hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, and the other was not hit, police said.
Police did not identify a motive or potential suspects in that shooting, but the incident prompted Mayor Rich Lansburgh to speak out against Woodland’s recent violence and gang activity in a column for the Daily Democrat, published Sunday. Lansburgh wrote that “gang violence is ramping up in our city,” and compared them to “an insatiable cancer, and just as potentially deadly for the hosts.”
Also Sunday, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for what police in another social media post called “a string of very bad choices.” The teen allegedly took his dad’s loaded gun to buy drugs at a Woodland park, was held up at gunpoint by drug dealers, chased them in a vehicle, crashed into another vehicle during that chase and fled the scene.
Police arrested the teenager after he returned to the vehicle, where officers found the loaded gun. He was booked into juvenile hall on suspicion of hit-and-run as well as firearms charges, the Police Department said.
