Photo: Lindsey Banner
VENTURA COUNTY — Criminals who don’t understand the bottom-line basics of the proper criminal behavior often find their nefarious activity brought to a sudden halt by the long arm of the law. It should be obvious, for example, that engaging in auto theft imposes upon the successful thief certain protocols, including “don’t carry the keys to vehicles you’ve stolen around in your pocket.”
Apparently 19-year-old Thousand Oaks resident Lindsey Banner skipped that chapter in the book “How to be a Crook and Get Away with It.” After stealing an SUV on the morning of March 19th from a Thousand Oaks neighborhood, he then broke into another parked vehicle to steal personal property that included prescription medications.
Just after 3:00 a.m. on March 20th, a Thousand Oaks Police Department patrol unit spotted Banner “conducting himself suspiciously” (just walking around at that hour might qualify as “suspicious” in the law enforcement rule book), and made contact with him.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Robert Davidson, it didn’t take the patrol deputy very long to realize Banner “was under the influence of a controlled substance,” which became the probably cause for his arrest at the scene.
Once in cuffs, the deputy conducted a field search of Banner’s person and discovered “two ignition keys belonging to two different vehicles,” one of which was the SUV he’d been cruising around in on March 19th before leaving abandoned just two miles from where it was stolen.
Subsequent investigation and a warrant search of Banner’s residence revealed that he was in possession of personal property stolen from the two vehicles he had burglarized. Banner was transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked for vehicle theft and possession of stolen property. Davidson indicated that “he remains in custody awaiting trial with a bail of $25,000.”
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
