Bishop burglar caught on camera gives chase

BISHOP, Texas — On Sunday evening, May 5, the Bishop Police Department arrested a serial burglar from Bishop. It all started when resident Dylan Rivera noticed some of his belongings were missing, like his iPhone, shoes and a few shirts.

Rivera said he decided to install surveillance cameras all around the exterior and interior of his house to detect the crime in action. He said this isn’t the first time he’s caught suspect Rolando “Rollie” Garcia at his home. Rivera said he caught him a few weeks before trying to steal some of his things and confronted him, but Garcia came back to try again.

“It made me sad and scared. Sad because my mom worked hard for everything she did to me and she was scared because it’s a small town and anything can happen, but I’m the only person who filmed it, and it’s pretty scary,” Rivera said.

It was Rivera’s call that put Garcia back on the police radar. Garcia has a history of theft and burglary in the town of Bishop.

“They found a name and an area where he may have dumped some of these stolen goods. They were able to recover part of the property. They located the area, he took off on foot and officers conducted a brief foot pursuit,” Bishop Police Chief Edward Day said.

KRIS 6 was informed by another officer that the pursuit lasted approximately 30 minutes. Day said Garcia hid in a vacant building in the 100 block of W Fourth St until he was found by officers.

Garcia then fled the vacant building, crawled through the grass and under another vacant building until he crawled out the other side. He was then cornered by officers, arrested for evading arrest and transported to the Nueces County Jail.

“We anticipate additional charges will be filed for burglary and possession of stolen property, and depending on the information investigators gather, we may have even more charges coming down the road,” Day said.

Day said Rivera was not the suspect’s only victim. He encourages anyone who knows something or has had their belongings stolen to contact police to take a burglar off the street and get to the root of the problem.

“What we find is that they are fueling an addiction or other illegal activity with the burglary or theft that they are committing. It’s just a cycle of criminal activity, but if we can stop it at the root, then we can prevent other people from falling victim to it,” Day said.

Day said most of these crimes took place on the west side of Bishop’s.

“I know sometimes people think if it’s stolen they’ll never find it or waste their time calling, but that’s not the case. I might be the smallest object with a serial number that we are able to trace and link to other cases together,” Day said.

Those with information can contact police at their non-emergency number, which is 361-584-2443, and speak with someone in their criminal investigation division.

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