SEAN KIMMONS
Four high school students, three of whom attend Lehman High School, were recently arrested for a string of thefts from vehicles in Buda and Kyle, police say.
Kevin Cardiel and Andrew Cuellar-Rodgers, both aged 17, and two 16-year-old boys reportedly broke into at least eight vehicles over one night, stealing roughly $5,000 worth of items.
Cardiel attends the Impact Center, a disciplinary alternative school for Hays CISD, police say.
Buda police believe that a fifth teenage boy was also involved in the burglaries.
“We do expect additional charges on another juvenile,” Police Chief Bo Kidd said Friday.
Cardiel
Early Feb. 26, Kyle police received a call of four men trying to open car doors in the 100 block of Coneflower in west Kyle. An officer later found the men with a treasure trove of stolen items across the city, Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett says.
“I think they went on a burglary spree,” he said.
While en route to the call, Officer Jonathan Akers says that he noticed a black bag in the middle of Hawthorne Drive at FM 150. He picked up the bag and found business cards with the name of a local resident. Akers drove to the resident’s home, where the resident informed the officer that his vehicle had been burglarized via an unlocked door, an arrest affidavit says.
Other officers who responded to the Coneflower call retrieved the license plate of the suspect’s silver Nissan Altima. While driving along Goforth Road near Elmhurst Drive, Akers says that the Altima passed his patrol car and he turned around to pursue. The suspect’s car eventually stopped in a driveway in the 100 block of Dashelle Run, the report says.
Cuellar-Rodgers
Akers then advised the four men to exit the car so he could detain them. In plain view, Akers says that he saw a purse and numerous electronics, such as GPS devices, car chargers and iPods in the car. One of the juveniles’ fathers, who owned the car, came down and gave police consent to search his car, the affidavit says.
Besides the electronics and purse, officers discovered jewelry and two bottles of the pain killer Hydrocodone, prescribed to another resident who also had his vehicle raided, police say.
Kyle police charged all four suspects with engaging in organized criminal activity, a third-degree felony; possession of a controlled substance, a state jail felony; and burglary of a vehicle, a Class A misdemeanor. Buda police also added four counts of burglary of a vehicle to the suspects’ rap sheets, jail records show.
Kidd said that some vehicle owners did not want to file charges and just wanted their property back.
Police believe that there may have been other victims. To report a theft, contact Kyle police at 268-0859 or Buda police at 312-1001.
As of Friday, Cardiel and Cuellar-Rodgers remain at Hays County Jail on the various charges, while the underage boys are in custody at the Hays County Juvenile Detention Center, records show.
Related stories:
- Officer nabs armed thief 08/10/2011
- Crime Briefs 08/4/2010
- Suspected purse snatcher, shoplifter jailed 12/14/2011
