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Police Arrest Two Teenage Car Thieves

PALO ALTO, CA  Police arrested two burglary suspects on Tuesday afternoon who broke into the garage of an occupied residence and stole two vehicles earlier in the day.  A third suspect remains unidentified and outstanding.

On Tuesday, July 16, 2024, at about 10:05 a.m., the Palo Alto 24-hour dispatch center received a call reporting the theft of two vehicles from a residence on the 1900 block of Newell Road.  The resident, a man in his forties, had just discovered that a vehicle was missing from his attached garage and a second vehicle was missing from his driveway.  Another vehicle in his driveway had also been damaged overnight.

Officers responded to the scene and, after reviewing the victim’s security camera footage, determined that, at about 7:00 a.m., three male subjects had arrived in a silver Chevrolet Camaro and parked in front of the victim’s home.  Two of the males entered an unlocked blue Volkswagen sport utility vehicle parked in the victim’s driveway and used a garage door opener found inside to open the victim’s garage door.  Once inside the garage, the suspects located keys and used them to steal a grey BMW sport utility vehicle parked inside the garage and the blue Volkswagen in the driveway.  They also stole a few miscellaneous items from the garage.  While driving the grey BMW out of the garage, one of the suspects collided with a grey BMW sedan that was also parked in the victim’s driveway causing minor damage.

The two suspects fled in the stolen sport utility vehicles, accompanied by the third suspect in the Camaro.

At about 12:00 p.m., detectives located the two stolen sport utility vehicles parked in the parking lot of a hotel located on the 2100 block of Gold Street in San Jose.  Nearby, detectives located and detained two male subjects matching the descriptions of the suspects seen stealing the vehicles.  Detectives recovered from the suspects property belonging to the victim, as well as the keys to one of the stolen vehicles.

Detectives also located the silver Camaro parked nearby.  It was later determined to have been stolen in San Jose between 4:00 p.m. Monday and 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.  The third suspect who was driving the stolen sports car, is outstanding.

Police booked 18-year-old Richard Angel Flores of Santa Clara into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for residential burglary and vehicle theft (both felonies).  His booking photograph appears above.

Police arrested the other suspect for residential burglary and vehicle theft (both felonies).  As this suspect is 16 years old, police transported him to the Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall.  In accordance with our standard release of information procedures, no additional information on that suspect is available since he is under the age of 18.