Letter: A burglar is arrested in Princeton

I was at my storage container this afternoon when a guy jumped over the fence and hurried right past me—making his way diagonally to the far corner where he virtually walked up and over the corner of the barbed wire, up onto the roof of a storage shed that’s kitty corner to our yard and then disappeared down between the containers and the vehicle parked there.

In annoyance that this guy had just walked through my life by casually traversing barbed wire fences, I climbed up onto my shipping container and was hailed by a fellow on the next street over who saw me there, "Hey did you just see a guy go through there? The Sheriffs are after him!"

So I went out the gate to the nearest deputy and led him back through the gates to the yard where the runner was last seen. A brief search of vehicles there yielded nothing so we continued out to the back street where I opened up the next adjacent storage yards for the deputies to search. When the German Shepherd showed up it was just a matter of 15 minutes before a search of that adjacent yard led the deputy to open a back corner of the boat cover and discover the subject hiding in the enclosed cockpit area.

Find enclosed pictures I took from the shipping container and the next door yard, as the deputies rousted and detained the suspect.

The chase had begun 20  minutes earlier when the subject was spotted in an other storage yard a few streets over, humping a load of booty he’d accumulated presumably from burglarizing parked boats and RV’s. The suspects vehicle was seized but the suspect ran down the street and was spotted in the marsh on the west side of the fence of the Princeton lumber yard; "Driftwood". Tom the owner and Tom the younger gave chase and co-ordinated the deputy search effort down towards my part of the block where I took my place in the ultimate capture of the transgressor.

Compliments to all for a job well done. I do wonder though how that would have gone down on a stormy night, or even a calm one. Nonetheless Princeton-by-the-Sea has prevailed with the concerted efforts of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department and a half a dozen or so watchful and involved neighbors.
 
Another burglar out of commission for a month or two.

Michael Valentine Goldsun
Princeton
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