WATSONVILLE — Several arrests, chases and a crash have kept Watsonville Police busy over the past few days.
On Thursday an officer spotted a parolee at large in a Ford F-150 pickup near Ford Street just after 2 p.m.
Sgt. Mike Ridgway said when police tried to pull the driver over, he sped off, leading officers on a brief pursuit. The chase ended when the driver smashed into a concrete loading dock at a trucking business on Kearney Street.
“I had to jump out of the way; I just barely made it,” said a man who didn’t want to be identified.
As three men inside the truck fled the area on foot police set up a perimeter and brought in an officer with a K-9. A short time later police managed to spot a minivan traveling north on Main Street with the suspects aboard.
Police pulled the vehicle over and took at least two people into custody, Ridgway said.
While police were searching the pickup they located a loaded revolver handgun.
Then, on Friday police got a call about a man breaking into a car near East Fifth Street. When they arrived, the suspect fled on foot into a nearby homeless camp on Harkins Slough Road. Police managed to flush the suspect out of the brush and locate about $1,000 worth of alleged stolen goods.
Meanwhile, later Friday, police from various agencies broke up a fight on South Green Valley Road near the Home Depot store. While doing so, they recovered a loaded 9mm handgun and detained two juvenile males. That incident is still under investigation.
