Photo: Joel Mendoza
Ventura County – All members of polite society will agree that it can be a serious mistake to judge a person strictly upon their appearance, or to judge a book by its cover. Certainly that’s a working tenet of professional law enforcement personnel who understand that even a person of unkempt coiffeur or dour countenance can simply be an innocent person dealing with a bad hair day.
But young men swaggering through life with gang-affiliated nicknames like “Savage” and “Drowsy” bearing facial tattoos that indicate an apparent inability to declare their politics or disregard for civil discourse through other media, are often looked upon by the authorities—particularly those attached to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Gang Unit—as suspicious dudes.
Silva
Those suspicions appear to have led to the mid-afternoon attempted traffic stop of 22-year-old El Rio resident Gerald Silva on December 28th as he and his passenger, 20-year-old El Rio resident Joel Mendoza, cruised the city streets.
According to the VCSD report to the media, Silva—who travels his turf by the name “Savage”– is a parolee having served prison time for auto theft and evasion, while Mendoza—aka “Drowsy”—was recently incarcerated “for unlawful possession of a firearm” and is under Post Release Offender Supervision for a raft of other violations including street terrorism.
With that background, deputies attempted a traffic enforcement stop upon Silva’s car, but as he slowed at the sight of flashing red lights, Mendoza summarily exited the moving vehicle and took off on foot, vaulting a series of neighborhood fences as he emptied his pockets of “narcotic paraphernalia that was later located by a Sheriff’s K9 Officer.” A competent fence hurdler or not, Mendoza was soon brought to ground and taken into custody.
During the foot pursuit of Mendoza, Silva availed himself of the opportunity to hit the gas and flee the scene. But as these things go, “homeboys” have trouble leaving their turf, and Silva was located nearby a short while later and was himself taken into custody.
Mendoza was transported to Ventura County Jail where he was booked on charges of resisting and obstructing an officer, multiple narcotics violations, and a Post Release Offender hold. For his part, Silva was booked on charges of narcotics possession and multiple parole violations.
Photos: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
