San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputies arrested a Stockton man this week after a vehicle pursuit, and the charges against him include one that is hard to miss. Along with residential burglary and evading police, Roger Potts, 44, was booked on suspicion of kidnapping.
But the stranger wasn’t some random person yanked off the street. It was actually passenger riding in the car the entire time.
According to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, it began with a car. Deputies had been looking for a vehicle they believed was connected to a residential burglary committed a few days earlier on Priest Road in Stockton. When they spotted it and tried to make a traffic stop, that’s when things went awry. The driver bolted, and because he refused to pull over, the officers decided to pursue him.
The chase didn’t last long, though. The driver started around Sierra Nevada Street and made it just past Weber Avenue, where the driver surrendered. Deputies then checked out the vehicle and recovered items they thought had been stolen during the burglary. They also found tools commonly used to break into houses.
The passenger told police they had (presumably politely) asked the driver again and again to stop and let them out, but he refused. So they spent the entire pursuit trapped in a moving vehicle against their will. That actually makes this incident a little more serious than just a “driver fleeing the police” case.
How a Refusal to Stop Becomes a Kidnapping Charge
It may not sound like kidnapping in the most technical sense, but that’s where things start to get murky. Under California law, moving another person a substantial distance, against their will, by force or fear, is a crime. That’s the difference between kidnapping and false imprisonment, which applies to holding someone in place.
The passenger wanted out, as they said. They were stuck in the car, though, obviously by “force or fear.” So that’s kidnapping, allegedly, and kidnapping is an aggressive charge. Plenty of questions of consent and distance are what tend to get fought over in court. At this point, it is an allegation, and Potts has not been convicted of anything.
The Burglary Case Behind the Chase
Strip away the chase and there’s still the burglary to deal with, too. The pursuit began because deputies had linked the vehicle to a break-in on Priest Road days earlier. Don’t forget about the burglary items, either. In fact, possessing burglary tools is a crime on its own, and their presence can make a case about a break-in even stronger.
Potts was also booked on suspicion of possessing stolen property, evading law enforcement, and hit-and-run, and he had outstanding felony warrants at the time of his arrest. Each of those is its own allegation, so things might end up getting a little spicy as they move through the courts. We’ll be eager to see how this plays out.