Crime, Fire & Courts

Three people were injured Tuesday morning when a fire broke out at a mobile home in the Portola Heights Mobile Home park on Freedom Boulevard. The fire erupted at 7:15am in unit 25 on Cresti Way. One neighbor who used the name Erika said she ran...

Watsonville Police have identified the suspect who was arrested Oct. 3 after he holed up inside a vacant home on Clifford Avenue.  Javier Diaz Baruc, 30, was charged with burglary, resisting arrest, and possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, along with multiple outstanding warrants for...

A 19-year-old Watsonville man has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting an underage girl.  Christopher Medina Amezquita was arrested in Capitola with help from Capitola Police, the Santa Cruz County Anti-Crime Team and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. He was booked into Santa Cruz...

Monterey County Sheriff’s deputies on Saturday arrested two women who were allegedly running an unlicensed daycare center after a 3-month-old infant died in their care. Maria Marquez, 62, and her daughter, Johanna Marquez, 35, both of Royal Oaks, were charged with involuntary manslaughter, felony child...

An 84-year-old Bay Village resident was injured Tuesday morning after he was struck by a man on an electric bike on the Salsipudes Creek levee. Michelle Pulido of Watsonville Police said the victim was struck on a wide pedestrian path around 10:45am. The suspect...

Tow operator Kevin Chavez works on righting a VW sedan after it rolled off of Buena Vista Drive early Thursday morning. The California Highway Patrol said a male driver lost control of the VW Jetta around 6:30am while traveling westbound on the 600 block...

The public is invited to National Night Out, a series of gatherings held in communities throughout Santa Cruz County on Aug. 5 from 3-7pm. National Night Out Against Crime is a chance for people to meet the police officers, firefighters and first-responders who help them...

A suspicious bag left leaning against a California Highway Patrol vehicle in Prunedale Monday—which prompted a response from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad and the brief detainment of the man who left it—turned out to be nothing more than a lost computer bag. According...