Matthew Robert Torres
Santa Barbara – This city’s waterfront area, a mixed-use commercial-tourist-residential area, is generally regarded as an upscale community for those living there on a full time basis.
On mid-summer evenings, local residents enjoy the same balmy ocean breezes enjoyed by tourists who flock to the area by the hundreds of thousands throughout the summer.
In the pre-dawn hours of July 23rd, however, Matthew Robert Torres, a 39-year-old known transient hailing from Ventura County, had more on his mind than seeing the sights or enjoying the pleasant weather.
It was just after 4:00 a.m. that morning when, according to Santa Barbara Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood, 911 Emergency Dispatch received a call from a homeowner reporting “a suspicious subject inside a residence,” which brought the cops down to the waterfront address with all due alacrity.
Upon arrival, officers learned that the family in the home had been asleep when Torres allegedly “entered the residence through an unlocked door, went to the bedroom” and sexually assaulted two teenage girls.
The girls’ father awakened, whereupon he “confronted Torres and ushered him out of the apartment,” and moments later learned that his daughters “had been molested.”
With the father’s description of Torres in hand, officers immediately searched the neighborhood and located area business exterior security video that “captured images of a man that matched” the description.
An immediate social media broadcast was issued by SBPD, and reports of Torres’ location began to filter in.
Given those reports, “officers saturated the downtown corridor and conducted surveillance” which led them to spot Torres at 9:00 p.m. on the 23rd in the parking lot of a Ralph’s Market.
Torres was promptly taken into custody and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked on two charges of sexual assault and burglary, with his bail set at $100,000.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
