LAKEPORT >> Lakeport police on Sunday arrested a man wanted for an alleged armed burglary after a brief chase in which the suspect rammed a law enforcement vehicle.
Jose Manual Rodriguez, 29 of Kelseyville, was arrested and faces misdemeanor charges of an outstanding warrant, driving without a license and possession of methamphetamine and felony charges of resisting an officer with force or violence, fleeing from an officer with disregard for public safety and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.
The suspect had been the subject of an investigation and search since Thursday. On Sunday afternoon, with the assistance of deputies from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, authorities had located his Honda at a residence in North Lakeport. They set up surveillance for several hours. Just after 5 p.m., a Lakeport Police Detective saw the vehicle start moving and followed it to the area of Crystal Lake Way. He also called for marked police units to get into a position to stop the vehicle.
As officers arrived to make a felony vehicle stop, the driver of the Honda, identified as Rodriguez, hit the gas and accelerated at a high rate of speed.
Officers began pursuing Rodriguez, who reportedly drove in a reckless manner. A short time into the pursuit, the suspect turned the Honda toward a detective’s vehicle, that was displaying emergency lights, and intentionally slammed into it on the right front passenger side. The impact caused moderate damage.
The Detective was not injured.
Rodriguez then continued to flee for a short distance before crashing into a utility pole, at which point a Lakeport Police Officer used his car to block the suspect.
Rodriguez was taken into custody and officers located approximately one eighth of an ounce of a material suspected to be methamphetamine on his person. Due to injuries received in the accident, Rodriguez was taken by ambulance to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for treatment for approximately eight hours before being transported to the Lake County jail where he was booked and still remains in custody as of Tuesday afternoon.
The arrest stems from an incident on the evening of Thursday, Nov. 12, when Lakeport Police issued a community alert and possible suspect sketch seeking information to identify an armed robbery and burglary suspect from an incident that occurred earlier that day on 5th Street in the City of Lakeport.
Over the next several days, police continued to conduct follow up investigation on the case and received numerous leads from the community. On Sunday morning, Nov. 15, police received information which lead to a vacant residence in Lakeport, where property stolen from the 5th Street residence was located.
Further investigation led to the identification of Rodriguez as the suspect. Officers also determined that Rodriguez had brought a black beat up Honda sedan to the vacant residence and they located a California license plate from a 1993 Honda at the residence and found that the three plate letters matched what was provided by the victim.
It was further determined that Rodriguez had attempted to spray paint the Honda gold but that the effort did not cover all of the black paint. The Honda was seized as evidence and a Lakeport Police Detective obtained a search warrant. Items of evidence tying it to the 5th Street robbery/burglary were recovered.
Police are currently working with the Lake County District Attorney to also file robbery and burglary charges against Rodriguez.
