Another Gun and Felons off the Streets

All in a Day’s Work for the SCPD Neighborhood Enforcement Team (NET).  Another felon and another gun off the streets thanks to their hard work and street savvy.   

Last week NET was working a surveillance detail when... out of the blue, they spotted our suspect Mr. Jeremy Pineda - 32 years old. 

Mr. Pineda is known to our officers as someone with a long criminal history chalked full of felony convictions, including auto theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm.  He’s a legitimate Probation All Star. 

Our officers stopped Mr. Pineda and found he had a warrant out of Santa Clara County.  A subsequent search of his car found a loaded .45 caliber handgun.  Turns out, the handgun was stolen in May during a residential burglary here in Santa Cruz.    

Mr. Pineda was arrested and booked into jail for his outstanding warrant, and a host of gun charges to include being a felon in possession of a firearm.  Thankfully, the on-call judge granted our request for a bail increase from $50,000 to $200,000.   

While we were at it, we contacted Mr. Pineda’s female acquaintance, Ms. Fallon Feurtado – 23 year old. 

She too is on probation 2x over for drug convictions.  She was subject to search as a term of her probation so we obliged and searched her motel room at the Mission Inn.  We found heroin and paraphernalia in the room.  Ms. Feurtado was booked into jail for violating her probation and drug possession charges. 

Stolen Gun - Drugs - and Another Probation All Star Taken Off The Streets

On Thursday March 20^th, Officers responded to a disturbance at the Hitching Post Motel in the 1700 block of Soquel Ave.  The disturbance involved our suspect playing "tough-guy" and picking on another motel guest, ultimately threatening to shoot him. 

As we arrived we found this couple who is well known to our officers.  Ladies and gentlemen....meet Adrian Puga and Selene Bazarnick. 

 

These two were in a car parked around the corner from the motel.  They were found with quantities for sale of heroin, methamphetamine, prescription pills, and marijuana. 

Also found was a loaded handgun (Glock .40 caliber) reported stolen out of Placerville. 

Interestingly enough, when searched by one of our female officers, Selene was found to be carrying a bullet stashed in her brassiere. 

The couple also had some watches, a digital camera and Italian coins packaged up in collector’s pouches.… all possibly traded for drugs.   If you have been the victim of a recent burglary with these items taken, please contact our Investigation Unit at (831) 420-5820. I will try to get photos of those items up on the blog next week. 

These two have a storied history with local law enforcement.  In fact, Mr. Puga is on probation 4 times over for drug charges, qualifying him as yet another Probation All Star.