Burglary suspects are under arrest

The combination of a watchful citizen and an astute detective led to the Thursday arrests of three people suspected in one of many recent Lodi home burglaries.

It started Wednesday, when Lodi Police Detective Eric Bradley was eating lunch at a Downtown restaurant. He watched as three young men entered. One of them, an adult, was talking on a cell phone.

The man, later identified as 20-year-old Philip Peraza, and two of the juveniles were ultimately arrested on suspicion of burglary and possessing stolen property.

Police later served a search warrant at Peraza's Lodi home and found more alleged stolen jewelry. They plan to soon announce a time when burglary victims can view and reclaim the items.

Bradley heard part of Peraza's conversation, and a citizen also heard that the young man was talking about how he had just pawned gold jewelry at a local store, which Bradley declined to name.

So Bradley went to the store and got a picture of the jewelry, along with a copy of the seller's driver's license, which matched the cell phone user Bradley had just seen.

Detectives are focusing on a rash of daytime home burglaries — 62 in September and October alone — and Bradley hadn't yet cross-referenced those reports Thursday morning to see if the pawned jewelry matched anything listed in the victims' reports.

Bradley said Peraza moved to Lodi in July, and he noted that home burglaries soon began to rise.

Mid-morning Thursday, someone called police to report four suspicious males on Cochran Road near Lower Sacramento Road.

Bradley heard of the call and joined patrol officers at the scene to look at the suspicious people.

"I recognized three of them who had been in the Downtown business establishment that I had been enjoying lunch in," he said.

Officers detained the four young men long enough for Bradley to search more records, and he found a Tuesday afternoon burglary report in which the Kristmont Street victim had listed jewelry among the stolen items.

Bradley took the victim a photo of the pawned jewelry, and the man identified many of the pieces in the picture, including gold necklaces and a diamond ring, Bradley said. The detective did not yet know the full value of the items.

Three of the suspects were arrested on suspicion of burglary and possession of stolen property. Police identified them as Peraza and two juveniles, whose names were not released because of their ages. A fourth person was released.

"It's a good example of a combined effort of the public, patrol and investigations," Lt. Chris Piombo said.

Police had noticed a rise in daytime residential burglaries, and last week Piombo gathered the statistics that proved the trend. Detectives are focusing on both those, as well as a series of armed robberies at gas stations.

Police have asked citizens to report anyone who seems suspicious or out of place, and police call logs appear to show a rise in such calls. That's what led to Thursday's arrests, police said.

"Calling it in is what does it. Very seldom do we come across it," Piombo said. "I drove for three hours today through neighborhoods and didn't come across anything."

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

FormerLodiResident wrote on Nov 16, 2009 9:59 AM:

" It's about time LPD you start listening to citizens calling in. But my question is, why didn't this happen in my case 3 years ago? My place was burgarlized 3 times in 2 months. Then my teenage son found out that another kid at school was selling the stuff. I called the LPD three times and they pretty much ignored me. I will never forget this. So I moved out of lodi and I couldn't be happier. "

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