Cops nab car thief

ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Following a short car chase through Santa Barbara's Eastside that ended in a foot pursuit, police arrested the driver of a stolen car yesterday afternoon.
After hopping a curb and crashing into a small retaining wall near the intersection of Gutierrez and Voluntario streets, the driver and a passenger fled on foot in different directions, Sgt. Mike McGrew said.

"We were able to capture the driver within this block," he said, "but the passenger is still outstanding."
Sarah Jaramillo, an 18-year-old freshman at Santa Barbara City College and the owner of the stolen 2004 Toyota Matrix XR, described how she had been visiting a friend in Isla Vista on Thursday when the car went missing. Jaramillo said she left her car keys on the coffee table in her friend's apartment and went outside to play frisbee, leaving the door unlocked.
She speculated that someone probably went into the apartment to rob it and spotted the car keys, since other items were missing from the apartment as well. Yesterday, around 11 a.m., Jaramillo said she was leaving her apartment in downtown Santa Barbara when she noticed a Matrix with low-profile tires, custom rims and tinted windows.
"I was like, that's a really nice Matrix," she said. "It's almost as nice as my Matrix. Hey, that is my Matrix."
She started following the car and dialed 911, she said. However, after the dispatcher told her the driver might be dangerous or armed and ordered her to stop, she let her stolen car pull away. She did note, however, that the driver had switched out her plates with bright red dealer plates from a local car dealership, passing that information on to the police.
Later in the day, around 4 p.m., an officer spotted a Matrix with red plates in the 800 block of Cota Street, Sgt. McGrew said. When the officer attempted to pull the car over, the driver sped away, he said.
"They chased the vehicle east on Cota, south on Aliso, east on Gutierrez and it crashed right here," Sgt. McGrew said, standing near the abandoned car as another officer dusted the door handles and windows for fingerprints.
Police collared the driver as he ran west into the residential neighborhood, Sgt. McGrew said, but were unable to track down the passenger. After taking fingerprints from the driver at the police station, authorities identified him as 28-year-old Saul Armenta of Santa Barbara.
Jaramillo said she had yet to look through the car to see if anything had been stolen. Other than a sizable dent in the front bumper, the Matrix didn't look too much worse for the wear, she said.