Photo: Stock Image
The eternal question (“Are avocados a fruit or a vegetable?”) may continue to go unanswered, but there is no such unresolved issue when it comes to picking crops that belong to another.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Dustin Heersche, the agricultural community of Fillmore depends on “a partnership between the farming community and the VCSD” to deal with the ongoing theft of valuable crops. “Farm Watch” is the civilian group that made a call for uniformed patrol on the night of April 15th which reported “a large quantity of avocados pre-staged in bags and crates” on a local farm.
Responding deputies attached to the Fillmore Patrol Station collected evidence at the scene, but it wasn’t until the morning of April 24th that they made contact with 32-year- old Jose Antonio Rosales Hernandez, locally known as having been previously convicted of Grand Theft of Vegetables and Fruit. As a convicted person, Hernandez was subject to probation terms “requiring him to submit to search of his person, residence, vehicle, or any property under his control.”
Those terms led to the discovery of methamphetamine and enough “additional evidence” to connect Hernandez to the attempted theft of avocados on the night of April 15th. Hernandez was taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on charges of Possession of a Controlled Substance and Attempted Grand Theft of Vegetables and Fruit.
