San Rafael Detectives Take Custody of Violent Armed Robbery Suspects
SAN RAFAEL – According to a recent Press Release issued by the San Rafael Police Department, SRPD Detectives took custody of two people involved in a series of armed robberies.
The first victims were parked along C Street when they were robbed late at night.
On the night of Wednesday, September 2 at approximately 11:30 pm, two victims (a male 72, and a female 56) had parked their car in the 200 block of C Street in San Rafael. A suspect walked up behind the female and put a gun to the back of her head and demanded money. When no money was found on the woman the suspect took a wallet from the man that contained cash and credit cards.
After the robber had fled, within a half an hour, the victim’s credit cards were used at a convenience store in Albany before midnight, and used again the next morning at another convenience store in San Mateo. Both transactions were captured on store surveillance cameras.
The following morning SRPD Detectives recovered the video and sent it out to Bay Area law enforcement in an attempt to identify the suspect. Within minutes of sending it out, San Mateo PD Detectives called and identified the man as Paris Kurt Ragland Jr., a 29-year-old resident of San Mateo. They also identified a female in the video with him at the time as Danielle Kristin O’Connor, a 26-year-old resident also of San Mateo.
A week later, on Wednesday, September 9 at approximately 1 am, a 63-year-old woman on her way home from work had just parked her car in the 200 block of Merrydale Road in San Rafael. The woman was approached by a suspect who choked her and hit her in the head with a gun until she was unconscious. The victim sustained a severe head injury and was taken by emergency medical respondents to a trauma center, where she underwent surgery for the head injury. The victim is currently listed in stable condition.
The next victim was parked on Merrydale Road when she was accosted, attacked and robbed.
During the robbery, the suspect took the victim’s purse, which was found by Albany Police at 11 am the same day. Detectives learned that this victim’s credit card was used at the same convenience store as the one from the robbery that had occurred just a week earlier on C Street. This transaction was also captured on video. Detectives identified the same female accomplice (O’Connor) on the second video and advised San Mateo PD Detectives that both suspects were wanted in connection with two violent robberies with a gun.
On that Wednesday evening, at about 7:45 pm, San Mateo PD located a vehicle that they believed belonged to the suspects in the parking lot of a San Mateo hotel. Shortly thereafter both suspects exited a rented room at the hotel, got into the car and drove away. San Mateo PD stopped the vehicle based on SRPD’s information, and the suspects were arrested. During a search of the suspect’s vehicle, a handgun and evidence from the robbery on Merrydale Road were recovered.
San Rafael Detectives took custody of Ragland, and O’Connor and booked them both into the Marin County Jail. Ragland was booked for assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, fraudulent credit card use, and committing a felony while on bail, His bail was raised to $250,000. O’Connor was charged with fraudulent credit card use and her bail was set at $20,000.
Paris Ragland’s history with law enforcement goes back to 2006, when at 21-years-old he was one of eight members of a violent San Francisco street gang accused in a murder, drug and gun trafficking case. As part of the “Down Below Gang”, according to an SFGate story from December 2006, he was involved in selling drugs and armed robberies in the Sunnydale housing project in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of south San Francisco. In the 2004 murders of Beverly Darly Robinson, Kenya Taylor, and Jacquain Williams, four men pleaded guilty: Don Johnson, Robert Calloway, Dornell Ellis, and Rickly Rollins. They were to serve up to 23 years. Christopher Byes, Ronnie and Allen Calloway, and Paris Ragland were all guilty of drug related offenses, and were to serve up to six years.
Following that, arrest records show he was charged in August of 2014 with driving under the influence of both drugs and alcohol, and presenting false identification to make another person liable. A year later, while back living in San Francisco, he was arrested for possession of a narcotic controlled substance, possessing marijuana for sale, and selling marijuana.
Danielle Kristen O’Connor may appear to be an innocent young lady caught in her boyfriend’s activities, but her record with the law tells a different story. Booking logs going back to 2008, when she was 19-years-old, show an arrest on domestic violence charges – battery on a spouse or co-habitant. That was followed over the next three years with at least four arrests for driving under the influence. Then on July 14, 2012, she was charged with another violent offense, battery on a person.
In January of 2014 she was picked up on a probation violation, and in July that year for possessing a controlled substance for sale, and driving on a suspended license. In August of 2014 she was charged with possessing a prescription drug without the prescription, and in December for shoplifting. Further details of those incidents were not available.
Read More: SFGate 2006
