Immediately after gun shop break-in, Modesto police recover rifles, arrest suspect
Rapid response by Modesto police Sunday morning recovered a dozen stolen semiautomatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo stolen from a hunting and shooting store moments earlier.
Just after 4:30 a.m., officers responded to an alarm sounding at Turner’s Outdoorsman, in the Walmart shopping center on Plaza Parkway.
“I think every cop in the city” who was on duty responded, Lt. Joe Bottoms said later Sunday morning. “If you know what they sell, you’re going.”
Officers were on scene almost immediately and located the suspect vehicle fleeing the area, according to a post on the Police Department’s Facebook page. Bottoms added, “We kind of lucked out and caught the guy leaving and were able to snatch him up.”
The suspect, who was driving a stolen vehicle, collided with two patrol cars while attempting to flee. The cars suffered minor damage, but no one was injured and the alleged thief, identified in the booking log as Jose Manuel Navarro, was taken into custody.
Recovered were a dozen or so “AR platform-style rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition,” Bottoms said. “It would have been bad if those 12 rifles hit the streets.”
Navarro, 28, was booked on a number of charges, including burglary, vandalism, possession of a stolen vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and being a prohibited person in possession of firearms.
