Santa Barbara – Jose Alejandro Perez, a 40 year-old Santa Barbara resident and known gang affiliate with a personal appearance right out of Central Casting, may be good at eluding police over a protracted period of time, but he’s a lousy judge of public transit bus routes.
Having been the subject of a local $500,000 attempted murder arrest warrant since February 2014 following an episode wherein Perez allegedly and without provocation knocked a 34 year-old passerby off a motor scooter and inflicted multiple stab wounds, Perez managed to make himself scarce and remained at large despite sincere law enforcement efforts to locate him locally as well as throughout Southern California.
But just before noon on July 30th, Perez inexplicably alighted from a Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District bus directly in front of the city’s Superior Court building, where the presence of uniformed Sheriffs and Santa Barbara Police officers frequently make their way to courtroom appearances and hearings. According to SBPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood, an officer from the Criminal Impact Team immediately recognized Perez “and knew he was wanted for attempted murder.”
Contact with Perez was promptly initiated, but Perez was not interested in any engagement, and “resisted being handcuffed, fighting with the officer,” Harwood reported. With multiple uniformed law enforcement personnel in close proximity and responding to the altercation, Perez was quickly subdued, arrested, and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail on charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting an officer, with his total bail set at $502,500.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara Police Department
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