Motor Officer’s Traffic Stop Leads To Two Arrests And Recovery Of Stolen Vehicle
On July 16, 2013 at approximately 3:30PM, Officer Garcia — a MVPD motor officer — was working the intersection of Rengstorff and Crisanto Avenues. As part of his traffic enforcement efforts, he stopped a silver BMW with paper plates and made contact with the vehicle’s two occupants: a female driver and a male passenger.
The female driver, later identified as suspect Kathryn Scudder out of Modesto, provided him with a drivers license found in the backseat of the vehicle she was in. Once Officer Garcia had the drivers license in hand, Scudder drove away eventually heading eastbound on Villa Street. Officer Garcia promptly called out the suspect’s description, as well as that of the vehicle, enabling responding units to quickly set-up a perimeter.
As units arrived on-scene they saw a vehicle matching the description of the BMW on the 200 block of Palo Alto Avenue come to a stop. The occupants of the vehicle fled on-foot running east towards Mountain View Avenue. Officer Garcia was able to apprehend the male suspect, later identified as Hanschris Ballente out of Stockton. While this was taking place, the vehicle’s VIN was run out and returned as stolen out of Contra Costa County.
With the perimeter secure MVPD units, including K9 Officer Hansen and Odin, began a systematic search for suspect Scudder based on her last known location. During the search, suspect Scudder was found hiding in a yard located on the 1300 block of Villa Street and arrested without incident.
Suspect Ballente, the passenger, was found to have a felony parole hold for assault with a deadly weapon (245PC). He also had in his possession methamphetamine. Stolen property was discovered in the vehicle along with other indicia related to identity theft. The drivers license suspect Scudder provided to Officer Garcia was reported stolen out of Marin County.
Current charges in this on-going investigation include grand theft auto (10851CVC), possession of stolen property (496PC) and possession of methamphetamine (11377H&S). If you have any information about this case, please contact us at 650-903-6344 and reference case number 13-3947.
“There’s a misconception that motor officers only write tickets,” says Sgt. DeLaOssa, “However good traffic stops, like this one, result in so much more than that. Our motor unit not only focuses on reducing traffic violations for The City, but most importantly we want to reduce criminal activity and catch suspects.”
Sgt. DeLaOssa adds, “While the motor unit handled this case, it required assistance from all our teams — patrol, K9s, investigations — to effect a quick and secure perimeter.”
It’s good that most criminals are stupid, on drugs, or both. But that doesn’t make your job any easier. I appreciate that you have the guts to interact with these people and great admiration for all of you who are brave enough to walk toward a situation I’d run away from. Thank you.
Claire - Wow! Thank you for the kind words! We can’t do it without the support of folks like you who live and/or work in the Mountain View community. It is our pleasure to serve and protect those here, and we try our best to take suspected criminals off the streets.
LOVE living and working in Mountain View-appreciate all the MV Police do for our safety and well-being!
Colleen - Thank you for posting your support here! We’ll pass this on to the officers involved.
Definitely share the sentiment and gratitude towards MVPD!
R.L.H. - Many thanks! =)
Well done..
Michael — As always, thanks for the support!
Way to go guys, I can’t think what could happen if they were still driving or walking MV streets, I feel my family is more protected after this event. It takes a lot of guts to do your job. On behalf of my family I thank you.
Celso — That is music to our ears! Thank your for sharing this with us. You help make what we do day after day so worth it =)
Good job!
By the way, Odin is a great name for a German shepherd police dog.
Larry — Thank you! And we couldn’t agree more! He is truly a hunter.
Thanks for the good work and thanks for sharing with it with us…Takes real guts to do a job like yours..thanks again.
Ralph — Thank you for the kind words! We appreciate that those who live and/or work in Mountain View are so supportive of us.