Busy hour for Turlock police: One suspect on Safeway roof, two trying to steal ATM
A couple of odd calls within an hour kept Turlock police officers busy early Wednesday.
About 3 a.m., they were dispatched to a report of a woman damaging items throughout the Safeway store on the 3700 block of Countryside Drive and refusing to leave.
When officers got on scene, they learned the woman had made her way into the attic of the store, and then onto the roof. The Turlock Fire Department responded to a request for a ladder tall enough to access the roof. The woman, later identified as 35-year-old Alma Garcia of Modesto, was found hiding and was safely brought down from the roof.
Garcia caused less than $400 in damage while in the store, said Deandra Wiley, crime and community information analyst with the Turlock Police Department. She was arrested on suspicion of vandalism, theft and public intoxication.
While officers still were working the Safeway case, dispatchers got a call about 3:24 a.m. of two people trying to steal an ATM outside the Farmers & Merchants Bank on the 3700 block of Geer Road.
The perpetrators had fled the scene before officers arrived. They had tied a chain around the ATM and were able to pull it from its base, Wiley said, but never got it out of the parking lot. Neither had they been able to open it to get any money.
“The two suspects were associated with two vehicles,” Wiley told The Bee in an email. One of them, a white utility van, was left at the scene. It turned out to be stolen, she said. The other was an older white pickup truck in which the would-be thieves fled.
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 2:25 PM.
