Arrest of two suspects may solve up to 15 cases

Clovis police say Tuesday night’s apprehension of two juveniles may close 15 or more car burglary cases.

According to officer Roger Dial, police decided they were being “hammered” by a mounting number of car burglary reports and assigned Dial and a new recruit, Brian Jenne, to do an undercover patrol in the North Plains Mall parking lot.

“We were looking for any suspicious people,” Dial said. “We saw a car with its headlights off; they would drive up to any car that had an open space next to it, probably 10 to 15 cars. They would look in the windows, see if anything was in the car, and see if anyone was watching.”

After observing the car for about 25 minutes, officers saw the car leave the parking lot and followed it to Walgreen's where the officers stopped the car and found two teenagers from Clovis with a car full of DVD players, car stereos, speakers, and at least 150 CD and DVD disks, along with a baseball bat and screwdriver police believe were used to break into cars. A check of the juveniles’ identities revealed that one was a runaway.

Police have not yet charged the two pending further investigation.