Ventura County – The problem with conducting criminal activity in a small town is the truth to the homily that “everybody knows everybody”. If you’re doing something illegal that wouldn’t even be noticed in an urban setting, your mere presence observed by the locals on the streets of a small community may well give rise to enough suspicion to be your undoing.
Such was clearly the case on January 2nd on the residential streets of Oak View, population of 4,000 and located between the even smaller towns of Casitas Springs and Mira Monte, in the Ojai Valley. It was mid-afternoon on that Friday when, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Kevin Donoghue, a 911 Emergency call made by “an alert and vigilant resident” was received by the Ojai Patrol station reporting “a female walking with large bags of property” through a local neighborhood.
When the object of the suspicious resident’s concern happened to drop one of the bags, scattering what appeared to be prescription medication on the ground, the resident thought it was time to call the cops. When Ojai Patrol deputies arrived at the scene and examined the dropped bags, they discovered that “the bags contained valuable property from a nearby residence.”
It didn’t take long for deputies to locate the female suspect and detain her while they made contact with the owners of the property and ascertained that they were out of town and that the property in question had indeed been purloined. The female suspect was promptly identified as Andrea Barrack, a 34-year old resident of Oak View. Barrack was then arrested and booked into Ventura County Jail on charges of residential burglary and parole violation, with her bail set at $70,000.
Read more:
VCSTAR: Oak View woman arrested for burglary
