Man arrested in carjacking, assault after jail release
SAN JOSE >> A man has been arrested after he allegedly carjacked someone and hit another victim in the head with a hammer days after his controversial release from Santa Clara County jail under emergency court measures to reduce jail overcrowding during the coronavirus pandemic.
James Mitchell Correa, 25, was wanted by San Jose police in a pair of attacks Wednesday in San Jose in which he is accused of commandeering someone’s car by saying that he had a gun, and the separate hammer attack. Officers spotted him Friday in South San Jose in the stolen car and wearing the same clothes from the carjacking, but he eluded capture after a brief car chase, police said.
Officers in the SJPD Violent Crimes Enforcement Team and METRO specialenforcement unit located Correa on Friday evening near Blossom Hill Road and Highway 85 and followed him until he got to a location where they could safely arrest him, police Chief Eddie Garcia said.
That was at a Shell gasoline station at Blossom Hill and Snell Avenue about 9:10 p.m. When officers confronted Correa, who was reportedly still driving the same Infiniti vehicle described in the carjacking, he tried to run away, police said.
But a K-9 officer sent police dog Tex after Correa, who was taken into custody after a short chase, Garcia said. Correa was booked back into the Santa Clara County jail, where he is being held without bail, jail records show.
Last week, Correa was charged with stealing a car, resisting arrest, and violating his parole — for a prior carjacking conviction — after he was arrested April 6 in San Jose. On April 10, he was formally arraigned via phone conference, according to attorneys and court records, and was released later that day.
Since those charges against Correa were either nonviolent felonies or misdemeanors, Judge Arthur Bocanegra ordered his release, in part citing emergency measures that set bail for such offenses to $0 during the COVID-19 state of emergency declared by the governor. The measures, instituted by the California chief justice and Judicial Council, were aimed at maintaining baseline court operations and slowing the influx of inmates at jails to allow for safe distancing and quarantine areas.
Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Cogbill objected to Correa’s release, describing him as a gang member who was on parole for a violent crime, and who posed a publicsafety threat.
Records and court accounts show that upon his release, Correa was scheduled to be transported by ambulance to the Field Respite Center, the temporary hospital facility set up at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Correa had claimed while in custody that he was infected with COVID-19, but that was not fully corroborated with prosecutors by the time he was let go.
What happened to him next is unclear. Correa, who in records is listed as transient, resurfaced Wednesday after the reported carjacking and hammer assault, police said.
Chief Garcia said he was frustrated given that the same judge ordered the release earlier in the month of two men, charged with dozens of drug trafficking and gun offenses and who were alleged to have links to Mexican drug cartels, under the emergency court measures.
“Once again, a judge has given more rights to the criminal than they’re giving to victims and residents of the city,” Garcia said. “This judge got lucky by this individual being apprehended. Had he hurt anyone else or caused my officers harm, that would have been a difficult burden to carry.”
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said Correa needed to be an exception to widespread jail de-population efforts — Santa Clara County jails had a Friday census of 2,354, a 26% decrease from early March — achieved largely by the release of nonviolent and low-level pretrial detainees and people with expiring jail sentences.
“We can and should protect both public health and public safety during this pandemic,” Rosen said Friday. “We carefully reduced our jail population to have space for dangerous and violent criminals like this defendant.”
When reached for comment, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Superior
Court cited prohibitions against judges commenting on pending cases.
After the previous instance with the drug and weapons defendants, supporters of the emergency measures described cases like these as outliers that should not be used to distort the fact the vast majority of people being released are not violent and are being spared from potentially deadly infection risks in jail.
Garcia said he would not have necessarily opposed the jail release of a car-theft suspect,butthat Correa’s violent history should have given the court more pause.
“If you let a misdemeanor offender without this history out, I wouldn’t hold you accountable since you can’t predict that person would do something like this,” he said. “But (Correa) had all the signs of someone who was going to hurt someone.”
Garcia said that while officers were following Correa on Friday evening, they observed him meet with another man in a parking lot, where they changed their clothes before heading to the gas station.
“He was not going to go home and social distance or shelter in place,” he said. “He was up to no good.”
The chief reiterated his previous stance that no matter what the court outcome, his officers will continue to arrest people who present a public danger.
“This is what we do,” Garcia said, “and we do this for the city.”