Suspicious Activity on State Street

By an edhat reader

I was walking North on State Street in Santa Barbara at approximately 11:45 a.m. on September 11th with my wife, her sister and her significant other. I noticed a Hispanic man dressed in a long sleeve blue and black flannel. This stood out to me being it was very hot that day. He was pushing a light blue road bike with a reusable grocery bag attached to the left handlebar. He placed it next to a bike rack and did not lock it, then proceeded to walk away but repeatedly looked back checking on it. 

He got to the next block and stood on the corner and turned back to keep his watch on the bike. A few minutes pass and I see a white guy in his mid 20’s wearing a backpack walk up to the bike and start looking it over. He then casually stood it up and walked it down the alley past The Habit. The Hispanic guy then turned around and quickly walked away heading north on State St. I realized at that time it was a drop. 

We continue to walk up State Street after that and go about our day. A couple blocks up as we were about to walk into a clothing store I see a very similar blue road bike with the same type of bag attached to the left handlebar leaning up against the wall in the door entry of the store. This was not the exact bike I saw the first time, but much too similar setup. I then saw the exact same Hispanic guy in the flannel walk by me and proceed approximately 20- 30 ft and stood post against the wall and turned to watch the bike. 

I quickly just reacted given the situation and proceeded towards the bike like I was going to enter the store. I can’t really tell you my thought process but I went to take the bag. As I leaned in to grab it I realized it was tightly tied around the bar and it would not have come off that easily. I then just turned around towards the street and crossed my arms over my chest standing tall as in a way to claim the bike. Not sure why I did this or what I was going to do next but a few seconds later I see another Hispanic guy walking towards me on the sidewalk eyeballing back and forth giving not so pleasant of looks. He was pissed off and noticeably on edge. He stared at me as he passed directly in front of me and walked towards the other guy standing against the wall and waved hand signal towards him. Then blue/black flannel guy came to where I was and stood to my right. We are now both facing the street just standing there and it’s obviously an awkward confrontation or standoff was happening. 

Now I’m noticing across the street that there’s another guy watching us and that’s when I started to feel somewhat uneasy. Sometime during these moments as I glanced at the guy standing next to me, he put his hand to his hip and patted it fully intending to show me that he was armed. I was very unsure in what to do at that moment being that I was with my wife and her sister, and there were tons of people around us. I picked my phone up and pretended to be talking to someone and told them I’m waiting and here is the address of where I’m at.

Just after that a girl rushes out of the store seeming a little irate about something and grabs the bike. I said the first thing that came to my mind and that was, “you shouldn’t take this bike; the police are on their way!” As soon as I said that, police or ambulance sirens sounded right around the corner. The girl jumped on the seat and rode off really fast and guy standing next to me walked off about as fast paced as you can without running.

The sirens were just a lucky coincidence somehow, but I feel like that got me out of the situation. The bags that were on the handlebars looked pretty full and heavy the way they swung. The guy’s backpack was large and the way it draped off his shoulder, it seemed to have weight. I did call the police and they said they would send someone when they were available and as far as I know they did not come. I called back and told him I had photos of this person and the girl and they said for me to go to the SBPD website and upload the photos under suspicious circumstances, I saw a couple of Red Shirts walking by and told them what I saw. They said they actually did see that bike and did see the girl ride by them in a huge hurry but they didn’t really think anything of it. To me this is a pretty big operation as that’s a lot of trouble to go through. They wanted to do the drops in daylight and in public and not have any contact with each other. Those bags were too heavy to be nothing. I know what coincidences are and what I saw wasn’t just a coincidence.