Amanda Dicey
Santa Barbara County – The holiday season is off to a roaring start, with retailers entering the busiest time of the year. It is also the time when thieves are most active, as evidenced by the December 13th arrest of five individuals following an unsolicited tip from an alert citizen.
Skye Fabing
According to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, at 8:40 a.m. on the 13th, deputies received a call reporting “a suspicious grey Toyota Camry” parked in a public park usually reserved for youth baseball events.
Mike Stewart
The citizen making that call indicated that he’d witnessed “several subjects acting nervously” in possession of wire cutters as they repeatedly entered and exited the Camry.
By the time the cops arrived at the scene, however, the Camry was nowhere to be seen. But the description of the vehicle was good enough to allow an SBSD patrol unit to spot the car shortly after the car exited the parking lot.
Ryan Stevens
The deputy approached the vehicle and made contact with its occupants as additional patrol units rolled up. It was promptly determined that “all of the subjects appeared to be under the influence of a controlled substance” and that a number of syringes were in plain view of the deputies.
With probable cause for further investigation at this point, deputies soon discovered “thousands of dollars worth of stolen merchandise” in the car, as well as an extensive set of burglary tools.
Brennan Stevens
The identities of the vehicle’s occupants were soon determined, and deputies had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of 23-year-old parolee and Santa Barbara resident Michael Stewart, 26-year-old warrant suspect Brennan Stevens of Lompoc, 29-year-old Ryan Stevens of Thousand Oaks, 29-year-old probationer Skye Fabing and 27-year-old Amanda Dicey of Lompoc, herself the subject of multiple arrest warrants.
All five suspects were transported to Santa Barbara County Jail and booked on a raft of charges associated with their outstanding warrants as well as for conspiracy, possession of stolen property, identity theft, possession of burglary tools, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of controlled substances.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
