Suspects with merchandise from Walnut Creek looting arrested on their way to Stanford Mall, police say

The east side of Stanford Shopping Center. Simon Properties photo.
Stanford Shopping Center. Simon Properties photo.

By the Daily Post staff

Two men were arrested as Menlo Park and Palo Alto police last night kept an eye out for potential looters, police said today.

Around 7:30 p.m. last night (May 31), a car was seen speeding through a red light on westbound Ravenswood Avenue at Laurel Street in Menlo Park, and when police pulled it over, the driver, Lamar Fontenot, 23, told police that he was heading home to Antioch because his mother was having medical issues, according to a statement from Menlo Park police Sgt. Kevin Paugh.

However, police noticed that Fontenot’s GPS was routing him to the Stanford Shopping Center, according to Paugh.

Officers also say that there were clothes in the car with security tags still attached.

Police also discovered that Fontenot was on parole.

Police searched the car and found lots of stolen clothing and a stolen cash register in the trunk, according to Paugh.

Police say the items were stolen from stores in Walnut Creek where looting had occurred earlier in the day.

As police went to arrest Fontenot, he ran away, causing for Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Atherton, East Palo Alto and Atherton police, along with sheriff’s deputies from Stanford and San Mateo County, to help look for Fontenot. He was found around 9 p.m. by a police dog.

Fontenot was arrested on suspicion of possession of stolen property, conspiracy, resisting arrest and a parole violation. He is in jail in lieu of $10,000 and is expected to appear in court tomorrow.

Also arrested was Fontenot’s passenger Jeremiah Thomas, 18, of Suisun City. He was booked into jail on suspicion of possession of stolen property and conspiracy but was released on $0 bail.

4 Comments

  1. Don’t worry, there is a bail fund set up by the Hollywood elite that will get him out quickly so he won’t miss a another night of looting.

  2. To those unfairly depived of their freedoms by an unforgivinging justice system. Are the riots all about police brutality, or is it about hatred and payback and money. Looters are young, mostly men, in overwhelming numbers executing with wonderful efficiency a new capitalist business model. Hard to feel moved to compassion and action when fear makes me barracade the door and hunker down in front of the TV and remind myself to buy a gun. 5 women organized the “me to movement,” yet your pent up hatred and frustration is released in violence that is ongoing.
    0
    Do I respect that. How am I to feel when lawlessness on on such a scale is added to the ongoing theft, murders, home invasions happening on my block by people feeling entitled to beat me up and take my stuff. Sir, may I have another? This is testosterone driven and looks like facisim mixed with racism & hate. I cannot help you, decades of democratic politicians have ridden into office on your backs and even Barry Obama did nothing measurable. The only person who has demonstrared the ability to act and deliver results is an unpleasant boorish rich guy in a White house. We all saw you got his attention. Almost breaking in his front door gave you the response you pushed him to. Make him look good and he could reverse a big part of the justice system that perpetuates injustice by punishing each of us with unending surveillance. The system piles on with every error and sufficates lives with ever tightening restraint. Like an algorithum it will select down and and each mistake will bring more and more attention.

  3. My wife read this story to me from the printed newspaper and that account included this statement: “Up to 50 cars circled the area trying to interfere with the search until a Palo Alto police dog found Fontenot at 9 p.m.”
    This was the most remarkable aspect of the story to me – wondering why this detail is not in the online version. Was it later disproven?
    Thank you for your reporting!

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