Page 6 - Dinuba Sentinel 1-10-19 E-edition

A6 | Thursday, January 10, 2019
Community The Dinuba Sentinel
District Doings
• Open Gate Ministries of Dinuba, which has provided emergency food, shelter, clothing, job training, financial aid, spiritual encouragement and counseling to the needy of Tulare County since 1974, will hold its annual Soup, Salad and Pie Lunch on Wednesday, Feb. 6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Palm United Methodist Church. The church is located on the corner of Tulare and P streets in downtown Dinuba.
All-you-can-eat soup is only $6, side salad costs $1 and a piece of pie costs $2. Take-out will also be available.
Centerpieces and boutique items will be available for purchase as well.
For more information, call 834-5135 or 591-1241.
Theft leads
stolen vehicle
Photos contributed
to pursuit of
Members from Open Gate Ministries in Dinuba received a pallet full of donated hams from Ruiz Foods last Thursday.
Open Gate receives hams from Ruiz Foods
Contributed
Ruiz Foods is helping two local organizations feed local families. This year they donated hams to Bethlehem Center and Open Gate Ministries. On Jan. 3 Open Gate Ministries picked up 90 hams.
“Both these organizations serve such a need in their communities.
Without the generous help of the community members, their pantries would not be able to feed the families in need. Ruiz Foods is honored to continuing our relationship with Open Gate Ministries and are humbled to donate to Bethlehem Center for the first time this year,” said Community Relations Administrator Blanca Santana.
Crime
Continued from Page A1
Sentinel staff report
Two men were arrested last week after leading local officers on a high speed chase that ended with the two men crashing into a ditch in southwest Dinuba, said police.
According the officers from the Dinuba Police Department, officers were dispatched to Walmart on Jan. 2 at around 6:15 p.m. for a call of two subjects loading a large bin of stolen items into a vehicle. As officers arrived on the scene, they say they observed the suspects’ vehicle leaving the parking lot of Walmart and heading southbound on Monte Vista.
Police say that when officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop on the vehicle the suspects sped away, and proceeded westbound on West Sierra Way.
The vehicle, which was later discovered to be stolen out of Parlier, continued westbound on West Sierra Way at a high rate of speed, say police, until
finally barreling through a cyclone fence and crashing into a canal at the dead end of West Sierra Way. As a result of the crash, police say both suspects were injured and unable to escape the vehicle.
The driver of the stolen vehicle was identified as Omar Zuloaga, 45, of Reedley. The passenger was identified as Michael Gonzalez, 28, of Selma. Both were taken into custody at the scene and then transported to Kaweah Delta Community Medical Center for medical treatment.
Officers say that several hundred dollars’ worth of items stolen from Walmart were located in the vehicle and returned to the store.
Both Zuloaga and Gonzalez were charged with vehicle theft, evading a police officer, conspiracy to commit a crime, all felonies.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact the Dinuba Police Department at 591-5911.
Drug charges also fell in 2018. Misdemeanor arrests for possession of a controlled substance went down from 2017’s number of 52 to 39 last year, for a 25 percent drop.
Arrests made for being under the influence of a controlled substance also experienced a significant decline in numbers. Dropping 35 percent from the numbers in 2017, the police department made 31 arrests. There were 48 arrests for UTI of a controlled substance in 2017.
Making an even greater drop last year were the arrests made for possession of drug paraphernalia. In 2017 there were 65 arrests made for possession of unlawful paraphernalia. This past year there were just 40 arrests, a difference of over 38 percent.
Cases for arson also fell in 2018, with seven cases compared to the previous year’s number of nine.
Up from 2017:
Though most numbers as a whole went down in the city of
Dinuba, about 20 percent, there were some numbers that did show an increase.
Theft went up from 2017 and continues to be the biggest crime by volume in the city of Dinuba. In 2017 there were a total of 384 arrests made for theft. That number went up
to 428 last year, an increase of 11 percent.
“We get a lot
of stuff out of
Walmart,” said
Iriarte, who also
referred to a theft
out of Walmart
on Jan. 2 that led
to a high-speed
pursuit, as well
as an attempted
carjacking in the
Walmart parking
lot (see articles in today’s Sentinel).
Car theft also went up in the city of Dinuba, by 11 percent. In 2017 there were 91 cases for car thefts. There were 101 cases in 2018.
Armed robbery, one of the biggest concerns for the department, according to Iriarte, also showed a slight increase from 2017. The Dinuba Police Department had 28 cases for armed robbery last year, up from 18 the previous year. The
number reflects a 56 percent increase.
“Theft is just property,” said Iriarte. “The increase in armed robbery is more troubling because our main concern is people’s safety.”
And though domestic violence battery arrests went down in Dinuba, the numbers for corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant, a felony, however, went up. Last year the Dinuba Police Department made 73 arrests for this felony, up 35 percent from 2017’s number of
54.
Cases for drive-by shootings
also went up. In 2017 there were 11 cases. In 2018 there were 15 cases for shooting at an inhabited residence.
Rape cases showed no increase over the past year. In both 2017 and 2018 there were nine cases for rape in Dinuba. Iriarte said most of the cases for rape arrests were alcohol induced.
As for arrests made for felony possession of a controlled substance, those numuber went up slightly as well, with five arrests made this past year compared to just three the previous year. Iriarte added that the numbers also reflect a change in recent California law, downgrading some felony drug charges to just misdemeanors.
Asked how numbers have changed for marijuana, given 2018 was the first year that recreational use of marijuana was legal in the state of California, Iriarte expressed the numbers are hard to evaluate.
“I can tell you that it’s kind of a joke,” said Iriarte. “Out on the streets it’s really just a citation. Honestly, it’s hard to enforce. And it can take away from officers doing more important things.”
But the most concerning affect of legalized marijuana, according to Iriarte, are how many calls the department gets from the schools.
Said Iriarte, “most of it is coming from the schools, from the kids.”
Those cases, according to Iriarte, usually result in the child either being suspended or expelled.
Iriarte also said that number have been falling steadily over the past five years. When it comes to Part One crimes, such as assault, murder, rape, car theft, theft and armed robbery, those number have dropped dramatically.
In 2014 there were a total of 1124 Part One crimes reported. That number fell to 1011 in 2015 and 846 in 2016. In 2017 the number dropped to 772 and last year the city reported 799.
Part of the reason for the drop, according to Iriarte, was the affect of new laws the decriminalized certain crimes, such as burglary and drug possession, which took those crimes off the list.
Iriarte said another reason for the drop is the police department’s pro-active approach. “You’d be surprised how much car theft numbers go down by taking just one car thief off the streets,” said Iriarte.
“The increase in armed robbery is more troubling because our main concern is people’s safety.”
— Lt. Abel Iriarte