Photo: Christian Catalan and Gilberto Solis
Isla Vista, Santa Barbara County – The action started immediately after midnight on January 11th when a University of California Santa Barbara cop, attached to the Isla Vista Foot Patrol and on his routine rounds, spotted a silver sedan with an apparent equipment violation.
According to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, the UCSB cop “attempted to conduct a traffic stop” which the sedan driver ignored, refusing to yield and speeding away.
At that point, the chase was on. As the UCSB cop pursued the sedan, he observed numerous items being ejected from it.
After a brief vehicle pursuit through the narrow, congested streets of Isla Vista, the sedan came to an abrupt halt and “three males and a female exited the vehicle” and took off running.
By that time, local area Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department patrol units were en-route and quickly set up a secure perimeter and called a K9 unit into action.
The items thrown from the sedan during their attempted flight from the cops included “an airsoft handgun, black ski masks, a hammer, and a blue bandana.”
The first suspect to be apprehended during his attempt to outrun the cops was 23-year-old Goleta resident Gilberto Solis.
The second suspect, 22-year-old Goleta resident Christian Catalan was spotted by a “deputy sheriff on bicycle patrol” as he hid under a parked truck in front of a residence he’d just invaded prior to being ejected by the home’s residents.
Both Solis and Catalan, known gang members, were taken into custody and booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on charges of felony evasion, conspiracy, destruction of evidence, possession of burglary tools, resisting arrest, prowling, driving with a suspended license, failing to register as a gang offender, and possession of an open container of marijuana in a vehicle.
Both men were on active county felony probation at the time of their arrests and are currently held on no bail parole holds.
The other male and the female who were passengers in the vehicle at the time of the attempted to evade arrest remain at large.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
