Ventura County – There are many of us who occasionally need to be reminded of the adage “It’s not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens.” When we over-react to the minor hassles of daily life, things seem to have a way of going from bad to worse.
Case in point: 24-year old Daniel Diaz seems to have set his good judgment aside in the early morning hours just after midnight on April 15th after he was given a routine traffic citation following his failure to bring his car to a complete halt at a four-way stop in the city of Ojai. While he was found by the citing Ventura County Sheriff’s Department deputy to not have a valid driver’s license, updated vehicle registration, or hard-copy proof of liability insurance and was duly cited for those infractions, none of that would have earned anything more than a ticket that could have been cleared up with the payment of a fine. Perhaps some peeved regret for having run that stop sign was in order, but who among us has not experienced that frustration?
According to VCSD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Donoghue, however, Diaz was apparently far more than merely irritated and sought his own form of violent retribution. It was just minutes later that the Ojai Sheriff’s Station received a 911 Emergency call alerting authorities to a citizen witnessing “a male subject throw large rocks at the police station,” and who had been observed near a vehicle matching the description of the one Diaz had been driving when cited.
The first deputy on scene spotted that vehicle at the side of a nearby road, locked with the engine running. Additional deputies arriving to investigate quickly realized that a number of police vehicles in the police station parking lot had “significant damage.” Diaz himself was soon located in the parking area of a nearby market, but when he spotted the uniformed deputy coming his way, he took off on foot.
As these things go, Diaz was no match for the cop’s athleticism, and was quickly subdued and taken into custody. Subsequent investigation revealed “about $4000 in damage” to multiple vehicles at the police station, earning Diaz a trip to Ventura County Jail where he was booked on charges of felony vandalism, with his bail set at $10,000.
Sometimes it just pays to sign the ticket and say “Have nice evening, Officer.”
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
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