San Leandro police are concerned that suspicious behavior towards police and threats made to the police department as a whole may be tied to the same East Oakland gang.
Lt. Robert McManus of the San Leandro Police told the Bay Area News Group on Thursday that the gang’s threats at his police department were deemed credible by police investigators working in East Oakland.
San Leandro Police believe this string of incidents started the night officers shot and killed 27-year-old Guadalupe Manzo Ochoa in San Leandro this December. Ochoa was driving a stolen car at the time and when police tried to pull her over, she led them on a chase to an East Oakland neighborhood. She then rammed several parked cars and several patrol vehicles. Police shot Ochoa and then summoned emergency medical aid. Ochoa died in the hospital. A passenger in Ochoa's vehicle and a San Leandro Police officer were also treated at the hospital as a result of those collisions, but both were released shortly after.
After Ochoa was shot, San Leandro officers returned to the scene of the shooting and were rammed into by another car, Bay Area News Group reported. Later, that same car was found abandoned by Oakland police who discovered it was the same car reported as a stolen vehicle earlier.
"These threats were believed to be valid and they had come from an East Oakland gang which had ties to the driver and quite possibly the passenger that were in that stolen vehicle shot by San Leandro police officers," said San Leandro Police Dept. Officer Robert McManus
A few days later, a San Leandro police officer was followed while driving his personal car to his Livermore home by a car of four men dressed in a way characteristic of East Oakland gang members. The four men in the car got out of their car and approached the officer, but then ran away and drove off after the officer confronted them.
"We do have to take these threats as credible threats because we do know the history of this East Oakland gang," McManus said. "They are a violent, serious gang responsible for violent crime."
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San Leandro police saw more of these suspicious incidents in February; another officer reported being followed to his home in San Ramon. Bay Are News Group reported that this incident happened just after a San Leandro gang member was believed to have fired a gun outside a bar where the California Highway Patrol was conducting a DUI stop.
In two other recent instances, off-duty detectives were approached by suspects they were investigating for violent crimes.
What still isn’t clear is whether these suspicious instances are connected to threats made to the San Leandro Police Department by an East Bay gang. While the Police Department doesn't know whether these incidents are related, the number of suspicious events in the last few months has the whole department on alert.
"Finishing your 10- or 12-hour tour of duty, putting on your t-shirt and jeans and hopping in your personal vehicle to drive home is kind of when the job should be over," McManus said.
