thedrifter
04-21-07, 09:03 AM
Two Marines honored for helping stop crime spree
By: JO MORELAND - Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON -- Two crime fighters in brown and tan Marine camouflage gear received a police commendation Friday morning for helping to halt a crime spree in North County.
Lance Cpls. Ryan Fleming and Matthew Cannard seemed a little embarrassed, but proud, as they accepted plaques from Oceanside police Capt. Reggie Grigsby during a Camp Pendleton award ceremony under gray skies.
"I don't think I really did too much," Fleming said.
Oceanside police Chief Frank S. McCoy may beg to differ. In the civilian commendations he wrote for the two Marines, McCoy said they risked their personal safety and went "above and beyond what would be expected of anyone."
Police said the two Marines intervened on March 1 when they saw a crime under way at a shopping center in the 2400 block of Vista Way in Oceanside.
As a result, five suspects believed to be gang members were arrested for carjackings, burglary and commercial robbery, as well as street robberies of four elderly women during a two-week series in Oceanside, Carlsbad and San Marcos, police said.
"You may not think that what you did was a lot, but you did what a lot of guys wouldn't have done," Oceanside Detective Damon Smith told the two Iraq war veterans Friday.
Smith said later that the two Marine were willing to act immediately on what they saw and get involved.
The suspects, he said, had been hanging out in shopping areas. They would watch women and target them based on how quickly they got in and out of their cars, said Smith.
On that March weekday in Oceanside, Fleming, a tall 20-year-old raised in Aiken, S.C., was at the shopping center with Cannard, a 22-year-old resident of Gladstone, Ore.
Ordinarily, the two leathernecks are amphibious assault vehicle crewmen for Echo Company, 3rd Assault Amphibious Battalion of the 1st Marine Division.
However, Cannard had some banking to do. The Marines said they saw a masked man get out of another car at the shopping center, push an elderly woman to the pavement and take her purse.
"We were kind of stunned, because she looked pretty old," Fleming said.
He said he heard later that the woman was 86.
"She told us later that she has Alzheimer's, and she didn't even know her purse had been stolen," Cannard said. "She thought it was lost."
The Marines got someone else to watch over the victim and drove after the suspects' car as it left the shopping center. Fleming drove while Cannard called police on a cell phone, telling dispatchers where the thieves were going, police said.
When they got to Bush Street in Oceanside, Cannard said, "there was a cop car diagonal in the middle of the road."
Police arrested two suspects when the car was stopped, and arrested three others later. Most of them are now serving prison time.
"We weren't surprised that it was Marines that had followed them," Grigsby said. "They were being true to the Corps' values, moving forward, making sure the victim was taken care of, righting a wrong."
-- Contact staff writer Jo Moreland at (760) 740-3524 or jmoreland@nctimes.com.
By: JO MORELAND - Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON -- Two crime fighters in brown and tan Marine camouflage gear received a police commendation Friday morning for helping to halt a crime spree in North County.
Lance Cpls. Ryan Fleming and Matthew Cannard seemed a little embarrassed, but proud, as they accepted plaques from Oceanside police Capt. Reggie Grigsby during a Camp Pendleton award ceremony under gray skies.
"I don't think I really did too much," Fleming said.
Oceanside police Chief Frank S. McCoy may beg to differ. In the civilian commendations he wrote for the two Marines, McCoy said they risked their personal safety and went "above and beyond what would be expected of anyone."
Police said the two Marines intervened on March 1 when they saw a crime under way at a shopping center in the 2400 block of Vista Way in Oceanside.
As a result, five suspects believed to be gang members were arrested for carjackings, burglary and commercial robbery, as well as street robberies of four elderly women during a two-week series in Oceanside, Carlsbad and San Marcos, police said.
"You may not think that what you did was a lot, but you did what a lot of guys wouldn't have done," Oceanside Detective Damon Smith told the two Iraq war veterans Friday.
Smith said later that the two Marine were willing to act immediately on what they saw and get involved.
The suspects, he said, had been hanging out in shopping areas. They would watch women and target them based on how quickly they got in and out of their cars, said Smith.
On that March weekday in Oceanside, Fleming, a tall 20-year-old raised in Aiken, S.C., was at the shopping center with Cannard, a 22-year-old resident of Gladstone, Ore.
Ordinarily, the two leathernecks are amphibious assault vehicle crewmen for Echo Company, 3rd Assault Amphibious Battalion of the 1st Marine Division.
However, Cannard had some banking to do. The Marines said they saw a masked man get out of another car at the shopping center, push an elderly woman to the pavement and take her purse.
"We were kind of stunned, because she looked pretty old," Fleming said.
He said he heard later that the woman was 86.
"She told us later that she has Alzheimer's, and she didn't even know her purse had been stolen," Cannard said. "She thought it was lost."
The Marines got someone else to watch over the victim and drove after the suspects' car as it left the shopping center. Fleming drove while Cannard called police on a cell phone, telling dispatchers where the thieves were going, police said.
When they got to Bush Street in Oceanside, Cannard said, "there was a cop car diagonal in the middle of the road."
Police arrested two suspects when the car was stopped, and arrested three others later. Most of them are now serving prison time.
"We weren't surprised that it was Marines that had followed them," Grigsby said. "They were being true to the Corps' values, moving forward, making sure the victim was taken care of, righting a wrong."
-- Contact staff writer Jo Moreland at (760) 740-3524 or jmoreland@nctimes.com.