Standoff with suspected thieves ends in arrests

Hector Alonzo Garcia, 27, Hugo Vasquez, 46, and Moises Vasquez, 25, all of San Mateo, were booked into county jail for burglary, conspiracy and obstructing/resisting arrest, according to a press release.

Police officers responded to a commercial burglary alarm at 2:20 a.m. and located an occupied Chevrolet Trailblazer driving away from the business in question. The driver, later identified as Garcia, stopped and quickly exited the vehicle a short distance away. Officers identified themselves and ordered Garcia to stop multiple times, but he instead ran into another business on the 1100 block of South Railroad Avenue. As he fled, he closed the gate to that business on the hand of one of the officers in pursuit. 

The other two men associated to Garcia were also determined to be inside the businesses’ property, according to police.

Assisted by allied agencies, officers established a perimeter when they saw the three men jumping over fences into other adjacent properties. Officers repeatedly identified themselves and ordered the men to surrender, but the suspects hid in various locations. Two of them were found hiding on the roof of a business on the 1100 block of South Railroad Avenue. Because the men refused to cooperate and might have been armed, officers waited several minutes before firing three “less lethal beanbag shotgun rounds” at the suspect’s lower legs to distract and immobilize them, said San Mateo police Sgt. Amanda Von Glahn. She described the rounds as small fabric pillows consisting of pellets. 

Two of the three shots hit one of the men in the lower part of his legs and the third shot missed them. Von Glahn said the shots didn’t seem to affect the men, but they eventually gave up and were arrested.

A San Mateo police K-9 found the third man hiding under a wooden pallet on another business’s property on the 1100 block of Railroad Avenue. He was arrested after briefly struggling with officers, according to police.