Dakotah Matzie
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY — An interesting phenomenon—wherein one criminal activity leads to another—became apparent early in the evening of April 24th when 38-year-old Lompoc resident Michael Rasmussen and 26-year-old Lompoc resident Dakotah Matzie were arrested by deputies of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
It all began when, according to SBSD Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, units attached to the Goleta Valley Bureau Patrol responded to a call from an area resident reporting that he had returned home to “find two suspects fleeing from his residence.”
Michael Rasmussen
Upon cursory investigation, it was determined that the suspects had stolen “tools and cash” from the home. The immediately ensuing search of the area turned up nothing.
24 hours later, however, a report of active shoplifters sent deputies to a retail location where store employees “reported that two suspects were loading up their carts with merchandise and attempting to leave the business.”
When the cops arrived on the scene, Rasmussen promptly left the premises with the purloined goods, attempting to evade deputies.
Contact was soon thereafter made, whereupon Rasmussen “violently resisted and pushed, grabbed, and struck deputies,” and was found to be in possession of a replica handgun. Taking Rasmussen into custody inflicted minor injuries on both himself an one of the deputies, both of whom were medically treated at the scene.
For her part, Matzie was found still inside the retail establishment where she was found “concealing stolen items in her clothing.”
Upon contact by uniformed deputies, she also resisted violently before being subdued and taken into custody.
She was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail where she was booked on charges of attempted shoplifting, residential burglary, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of heroin, and possession of stolen property, with her bail set at $50,000.
Rasmussen, who falsely identified himself to deputies “to conceal a felony warrant,” was out on bail at the time of the arrest and found to be in possession of controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, and stolen property.
He was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail for booking on charges of battery on an officer causing injury, felony resisting arrest, shoplifting, residential burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of heroin, providing a false identity, possession of stolen property, committing a felony when out on bail for a felony, and—shame of it all–urinating in public and the felony warrant, with his bail set at $75,000.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
