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Car thieves ditch one, take one

A pair of car thieves ditched a stolen Acura Integra at the corner of East Thompson and Highway 12 Friday evening, after an alert Sonoma Police officer ran the license plate and tried to make a traffic stop.

The black, aging Acura, taken from Placer County, was northbound on Highway 12 at about 8 p.m. when an officer spotted it and detected something suspicious. The officer’s instincts proved accurate, but the suspects – a man and a woman – bolted from the Acura before the officer could close in and they ran into the adjacent neighborhood where the male suspect tried to kick in the door of a house.

The resident scared them off and chased the two as far as Calle del Monte before they disappeared.

Police officers and deputies from the Sheriff’s Valley Substation set up a perimeter around several blocks of the Springs, stretching from Highway 12 up past 1st Avenue and from East Thomson to Vallejo. A canine unit was brought in to help with the search, but the pair had vanished.

A short time later, the California Highway Patrol, which also had units on-site, received word from a resident of Sierra Drive, just across Highway 12 from the initial encounter, that a white, 1997 Honda Civic had been stolen.

Police suspect the fleeing couple, and as of Monday afternoon the Honda had not been recovered.

The male suspect was described as Hispanic, 6-feet, 2-inches tall, weighing 200 pounds or more, with tattoos, gold chains and wearing blue jeans. No description was available for the woman.