Police arrest slew of sexual assault suspects
Alleged crimes occurred between 2016 and 2022
SAN JOSE >> Nearly three dozen sexual assault suspects were arrested since the new year in what San Jose police said was a push to apprehend those accused of sex crimes, with some incidents dating all the way back to 2016.
The recent crackdown resulted from a need to alleviate large caseloads and “help clear the queue” for the detectives in the sexual assaults unit, according to San Jose Police Sgt. Christian Camarillo in a Tuesday news conference. Several of the San Jose Police Department's units worked together during the monthand-a-half-long effort, including MERGE, Street Crimes, METRO, VCET and the Bureau of Investigations.
“It was a matter of there's a lot of cases that were pending,” Camarillo said. “The detectives all got together and said, `Hey, let's concentrate all of our resources right now, get these arrest warrants and go get these people.'”
The sex crimes, which ranged from misdemeanor sexual assault, felony sexual assault of a minor, oral copulation, sodomy and rape, took place between 2016 and February 2022, according to Camarillo. Of the 35 arrests, 29 were made in a one-month time span and two people were arrested outside of the city. Most “if not all” of the cases involved one suspect and one victim. The arrest warrants were recently issued for the suspects but Camarillo said he didn't have details on an exact time frame.
“This could be a case where this happened in 2016 but was reported in 2020 and 2021,” he said. “By the time we take statements, prepare reports and get arrests, it does take a little bit of time. It's very likely that the incident occurred in 2016 but was reported at a much later date. Someone can come forward today and say `I was sexually assaulted five years ago by a guy I know and I finally want something done.' There is no statute of limita- tion on these types of cases.”
The 35 cases involved known suspects, who have been identified and police found and arrested, according to Camarillo. There are an unspecified number of suspects who are still outstanding and police believe have fled the state or country because they know they're being sought. More than 16 of the suspects are still in custody.
“Oftentimes, the cases that take a lot more investigating is a random stranger case where we don't who the person is,” he said. “That really takes some detective work. We're going to investigate those fully too because there's nothing more dangerous than an unknown sexual predator out on the streets. These were cases where we know who the suspects were, we can get arrest warrants for them and more and less knew where to find them and take them into custody.”
Camarillo declined to go into the specifics of the methods used by police in the arrests but said that five were “on view arrests,” in which detectives were investigating or had gone to a residence to arrest someone and found other things occurring, such as a person being “prohibited from possessing certain things” such as a firearm.
“I think any sexual assault suspect that is out in the community is a threat, whether it's one victim, two victims or five victims,” he said. “They're looking to victimize somebody and rob them of their dignity by sexually assaulting them.”