Henry Sarria
By Henry S.
On Monday, a customer from out of town buying medications for his mother at the Rite Aid in the Fairview Shopping Center set his cellphone down to pick up another item & as he was doing so, his earpiece notified him his phone became disconnected.
When the customer (now a victim) returned to the counter, he discovered his cellphone had been taken by the person that was standing behind him in line. The victim went out, got on his motorcycle & managed to track his phone down, he found the suspect, a homeless HMA, in possession of his phone trying to get into it. The victim confronted the suspect & demanded his phone back, the suspect attacked the victim & a scuffle ensued in which the victim was knocked down.
An AMR (America Medical Response) employee driving by the scene stopped to assist the downed victim & to contain the suspect (the victim was holding onto the suspect’s leg). A couple of other bystanders (myself included) joined in to render help to both, assist the victim medically & detain the suspect until authorities arrived.
SBSO deputies arrived on scene quickly, they questioned all parties involved (myself included) & ran a check on the suspect, he had warrants, they ran the serial number of the mountain bike he was riding, it was stolen. The suspect was arrested for theft, assault, possession of stolen property & possibly under the influence of a controlled substance (methamphetamine).
The suspect was loaded into a SBSO vehicle, but was taken back out to have him checked over by paramedics, as he started to complain about pain. He was placed back into the vehicle, taken into custody & transported to SBC Jail.
Be careful out there folks, the brazen thefts are on the rise & apparently happening in even the most “safe” environments & situations.
“Do the time if you do the crime”. Good mantra for Santa Barbara to be known for. Great to hear and see videos of fellow citizens rising to the occasion, which have been showing up more and more, instead of bystander just passively holding their cell phone cameras. Yes, a mood shift is finally happening. Never worked when policy made sympathetic victims out of the actual perpetrators.
So I just got home from a long Memorial Day weekend, go on the page and see this. AWESOME! Good work by all those involved, good reporting from Henry S and the best part is ISLA VISTA PROUD!
While this did happen in Goleta, the guy writing the article and getting involved in the fray, long time Isla Vista guy with a lot of history!
So how much do you all want to bet that this guy they got is “houseless neighbor” from the People’s Park tent city in Isla Vista?
Regardless, good work to all of you for doing what you did, I wish the best to you all, keep up the great work and people, GET INVOLVED! If you see something wrong, don’t just sit there filming it with your phones, DO SOMETHING!
Good job guys. Unfortunately due to our completely liberal political climate we’re looking at more and more of this B.S. around the area. There’s only so much bystanders should have to do. Homeless and their “advocates” appear to be running the show and doing whatever the heck they want, at the cost of public safety and quality of life for regular citizens.
Politics has nothing to do with this. Yet another deluded right winger trying to use a specific crime to make a broad and inaccurate political point.
Isn’t there a Capitol building you should be taking over somewhere?
Take a broader look around Chillin, our local and state politics have EVERYTHING to do with this. And Trump is a clown. Give me a break…
Next time smack the taste out of his mouth! Great job Henry.
Coastwatch, thank you, I’m deeply humbled. It’s a damned shame witnessing what’s going on in our community. We’ve been dealing w/ a ton of issues here in IV (which Rypert & others have more than mentioned on many occasions) & honestly, it’s getting out of hand, but I don’t put up w/ it.
I think the main reason people are afraid to get involved is out of fear of retribution by the suspect & their associates or legal repercussions.
If you take a defensive position, you can’t be litigated against, as it’s defensive. As for retribution, well, again, you must do what you can to protect yourself if they come to your home.
The individual who was the suspect in this case, he had some gang tattoos, that was a bit of concern to the victim, but he pressed charges regardless.
I was living in Maimi during the height of the cocaine wars & trust me, it was absolute & utter lawlessness. Between the “cocaine cowboys” & those members of law enforcement who became corrupt, the average citizen was left w/ no protections & the cops who were clean, they were a target.
In many cases, citizens began taking the law into their own hands, w/ little or no repercussions & the clean cops would turn a blind eye to that. Not the right thing to do, but in that situation, the only thing to do.
While we’re not in a lawless situation, there’s still many bad folks, & some NOT homeless, that do bad things & when citizens get involved in thwarting their ill-intentions, that begins to send a message.
I think there’s a tipping point being reached, even here in IV. People are starting to get a little fed up & from that, I can see what’s been labeled in conversations here as “community backlash” (for lack of a better phrase).
I do hope things don’t lead to lawlessness, that’s when the “wild west” kicks in & we all know what that’s like. Stay safe, protect yourself & NEVER be afraid to help out. We owe it to each other, as a community.
The victim should have called the sheriff first to escort him over to the suspects location. Bad idea to confront a suspect without the sheriffs assist.
Sadly if our elected representatives who are supposed to work for us fail to do their jobs as they have been for years now, citizens will have to act and take matters into their own hands and not in a retributive way of course. This is how it worked in the past. Homeless are not necessarily the problem, the addicts and criminals are and if the message gets out that this community will not tolerate it, this might be our only hope to rectify this situation. Reminds me of how in the past, communities banned together to drive out the undesirables like this methhead criminal. They move elsewhere eventually or at least hopefully. Of course, everything should be done safely, but firmly and with zero tolerance for this BS, and crimes against our citizens.
LUVADUCK, what you said, absolutely right! Here in Isla Vista that is exactly the case. These gutter punks have shown up and created their squalid filth and in the process, they have managed to usurp, harass and intimidate the long time homeless guys that were harmeless and actually worked with the community. We always watched out for them, helped as we could. Then these clowns came in.
I just heard yesterday on my way back from campus from a reliable source that one of the organizations leading the protest in People’s Park here, they brought in a bunch of these gutter rats up from skid row in Los Angeles as part of their protest. They brought them in as muscle.
The organization that did this is Eco-Vista through demands and orders from their co-founder John Foran PhD, UCSB Environmental Studies department, teaches the “environmental justice” class there.
What is funny about the involvement by this guy is he is supposedly an enviromentalist, but he is allowing the “houseless neighbors” to create a massive negative environmental impact in the community.
Even more funny is the fact that the guy lives in a nice cushy home in the San Roque area of Santa Barbara, therefore no vested stake in the Isla Vista community other than to inflict his harm to carry out his little social experiment called an “eco-village” on the residents. Go figure.
JAMES B, LOLOL! That’s not going to work, given the mobility these individuals have. The guys that confronted this vermin, all community heroes in the least. At least they chose to be involved and to get results. It’s that “let the cops handle it all” nanny state mentality that allows criminals to succeed. Thank you for showing whom you support, we all know it’s not the people that did what they had to. Carry on!
ANDREA SMITH, don’t forgrt to mention the vast network of support the criminals have from organizations such as Food Not Bombs Isla Vista, Bonfire Collective and Eco-Vista.
In fact, just yesterday, the Eco-Vista crew brought up these addicts and criminals from skid row in Los Angeles to help occupy People’s Park here in IV.
So yes, all you said, in total agreement with because it is fact and truthful, it’s just too bad some think this is the acceptable norm.