Palo Alto thieves who used garage door opener to steal 2 SUVs arrested: police

( KRON ) — In an incident reminiscent of a series of recent crimes in Danville , two burglars who used a garage door clicker to steal two vehicles from a residential garage were arrested in Palo Alto Tuesday, police said. The Palo Alto Police Department’s 24-hour dispatch center got a call at about 10:05 a.m. reporting two vehicles stolen from a residence on the 1900 block of Newell Road.

According to police, a resident had discovered that a vehicle was missing from his attached garage and a second vehicle was missing from his driveway. A third vehicle in his driveway had been damaged.

Officers at the scene reviewed the victim’s security camera footage and determined that at around 7 a.m., three male suspects had arrived in a silver Chevrolet Camaro in front of the victim’s home. Two suspects entered an unlocked blue Volkswagen SUV parked in the driveway and used a garage door clicker to open the garage.

Inside the garage, police said, the suspects located keys that they used to steal a grey BMW SUV from inside the garage and the Volkswagen from the driveway. They also stole other miscellaneous items from the garage, police said.

While driving the BMW SUV out of the garage, one of the suspects crashed into a grey BMW sedan parked in the driveway, causing minor damage. Two suspects fled in the stolen SUVS while a third took off in the Camaro.

At around 12 p.m., detectives found two stolen SUVs in the parking lot of a hotel on the 2100 block of Gold Street in San Jose. Detectives located and detained two male suspects who matched the descriptions of those seen stealing the vehicles.

Detectives recovered property belonging to the victim and keys to one of the stolen vehicles. The silver Camaro was also found nearby and was later determined to have been stolen from San Jose on Monday or Tuesday.

Police booked Richard Angel Flores, 18, of Santa Clara into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for residential burglary and vehicle theft. The other suspect, a 16-year-old, was arrested for the same charges and taken to Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall.

The third suspect who was driving the silver Camaro remains outstanding.

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