Monterey County deputies recover Salinas police chief’s stolen gun, vest

UPDATE 7/13/2016 6:30 PM: A major announcement about a major bust. On Wednesday, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office announced months of hard work have paid off and possibly saved lives. Twenty guns, four pounds of drugs and thousands of dollars in cash have been recovered and 19 people have been arrested after a rash of vehicle thefts and burglaries. While the suspects are believed to be connected to one another, they aren’t believed to have gang ties.

“The Sheriff’s Office received numerous reports of thefts in Toro Park and Las Palmas areas in early spring,” said Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal.

Those arrested include Kory Yokomizo, Joseph Twiford Sutton, William Thielen, Jane Sarmiento, Jorge Salazar, Carol Manaea, Mark Mairose, Amanda Mairose, Sherilrene Howell, Michael Garcia, Angela Contreras, Anthony Garcia, Luis Flores, Edda Flores, Dana Cyr, Ethen Benoit, Miguel Barajas, Eduardo Barajas, Vidal Alvarez.

There were more than 100 reported car break-ins, including two cases involving the Salinas Police Department. On March 24, Chief Kelly McMillin’s rifle, ammunition and ballistic vest were stolen from his car. On April 18, a Salinas police officer’s gun, badge and uniform were stolen. Deputies served ten search warrants and conducted a number of parole and probation checks.

“Much of the property of these cases has been recovered to include the Salinas police chief’s rifle and another firearm belonging to a Salinas PD officer,” Bernal said.

Authorities aren’t revealing where or how they found McMillin’s rifle, only that it happened several weeks ago. It wasn’t made public because authorities were still working on other leads.

McMillin met with reporters after the news was made public.

“I can’t describe the relief that I felt when I got the call from the sergeant who told me that firearm had been recovered,” McMillin said. “It was just a tremendous sense of relief.”

In March, McMillin told KION that the thought of his gun on the streets made him ill. The rifle will undergo testing with information going into a national database.

“We are very confident that rifle has not been used in any crimes locally, because the caliber of the rifle has not been recovered. No casings have been recovered at any crime scenes,” McMillin said.

The gun was damaged during the theft, which he said they believed could have happened when the thieves pried it from its safety mechanism.

Bernal said the busts and the recovery of weapons might have possibly prevented more violence in the streets.

“The more firearms we can take off the streets — illegal firearms out of the hands of criminals — hopefully we save more lives,” Bernal said.

There is still a third Salinas Police Department gun on the streets. Authorities are still following up leads in the investigation.

In light of everything that has happened, the Salinas Police Department is looking at its gun policy.

“Policy changes are still being drafted and circulated,” McMillin said. “Anytime we do policy changes, there are several layers of review that they go through. And I think, not that there’s a silver lining to this, but I think it does make people hypersensitive to storage and the responsibility we all have to firearms.”

UPDATE 7/13/16 4:00 PM: The Sheriff’s Office released the names and booking photos of those who were arrested as a result of its investigation. Captioned photos can be found adjacent to this story.

UPDATE 7/13/16 12:20 PM: The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that two stolen guns belonging to members of the Salinas Police Department have been recovered. The guns were stolen during a rash of burglaries last spring in the unincorporated areas of Toro Park and Las Palmas.

According to a press release, Sheriff’s deputies conducted a 3-month investigation, serving 10 search warrants that resulted in 19 felony arrests on charges ranging from drug sales to illegal firearms possession. In all, deputies seized nine handguns, six shotguns and five illegally-possessed rifles, along with large amounts of cash and illegal drugs.

Among the recovered property is a semi-automatic rifle stolen in March from a car belonging to Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin and another officer’s gun taken weeks later from a parked car in Las Palmas.

ORIGINAL POST: The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office is reporting a major break in its investigation into a rash of burglaries that hit the Toro Park neighborhood last spring.

Investigators say they have recovered a rifle and vest that were stolen from Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin’s parked vehicle in March.

Last April, the Sheriff’s Office said there had been more than 40 car burglaries and thefts in Toro Park during a 6-week period beginning in March, including the theft of a semi-automatic rifle, bullet-proof vest and ammunition from a car belonging to Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin.

KION will have more on this developing story throughout the day.