On Sunday evening, May 5, the Bishop Police Department arrested a Bishop serial burglar. It started when resident Dylan Rivera noticed some of his belongings were missing, like his iPhone, his shoes and a couple of shirts.
Rivera said he decided to put up surveillance cameras all around the outside and inside of his house to catch the crime in action. He said it wasn’t the first time he caught suspect Rolando “Rollie” Garcia in his house. Rivera said he had caught him a few weeks before trying to steal some of his belongings and confronted him, but Garcia returned to try again.
“It made me sad and scared. Sad because my mom worked hard for all the stuff she got me and scared because it’s a small town and anything can happen, but I’m the only person who caught it on camera, and that’s kind of scary,” Rivera said.
Rivera’s call is what got Garcia back on the police’s radar. Garcia had prior theft and burglary cases in the City of Bishop.
“They got a name and an area where he may have dumped some of that stolen property. They were able to recover some of the property. They located the area, he took off on foot, and officers had a brief foot pursuit,” Bishop Chief of Police Edward Day said.
KRIS 6 was told by another officer that the pursuit lasted about thirty minutes. Day said Garcia hid in a vacant building on the 100 block of W Fourth St until he was found by officers.
Garcia then fled the vacant building, crawled through the grass and underneath another vacant building until he crawled to the other side. He was then cornered by officers, arrested for evading arrest, and transported to the Nueces County Jail.
“We do anticipate additional charges coming out for burglary and possession of stolen property, and depending on what information investigators put together, we might have even more charges coming in later on,” Day said.
Day said Rivera isn’t the only victim of this suspect. He encourages anyone who knows anything or has had their property stolen to contact the police to get one burglar off the streets and stop the root of the problem.
“What we find is that they’re feeding an addiction or some other illegal activity with the burglary or theft they are committing. It’s just a cycle of criminal activity, but if we can stop it at its root, then we can stop other people from being victimized by them,” Day said.
Day said most of these crimes have occurred on Bishop's West side.
“I know sometimes people think if it’s stolen, they are never going to find it again or they aren’t going to waste their time calling, but that’s not the case. I could be the smallest item with a serial number that we are able to track down and link with other cases together,” Day said.
Those with information can contact police at their non-emergency number, which is 361-584-2443, and speak with someone from their criminal investigation division.
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