In the predawn stillness of February 24, an alarm sliced through the calm of Sunnyvale's business district, and what unfolded has led to a flurry of charges for a Mountain View man. According to a press release from the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, their officers rushed to a glass-break alarm at a business along Lawrence Expressway, only to uncover multiple businesses that had been hit by burglars.
Pursuing the trail of crime, 28-year-old Walter Chicas was encountered and chose to flee, his flight punctuated by sounds bearing the harsh signature of gunshots, though no firearm was found on him when he was arrested and handcuffed, no physical harm had befallen anyone present. Initially booked on several burglary counts, Chicas saw his list of charges swell when, during a subsequent search of his residence for an unrelated matter by Mountain View and Palo Alto police last Wednesday, a handgun was unearthed, and it became a haunting echo to the Sunnyvale case.
As per the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, the discovery of the handgun prompted additional charges for Chicas, “assault with a deadly weapon” among them. As the press briefing details, it was the diligent cross-department communication between Sunnyvale DPS, the Palo Alto PD, and the Mountain View PD that allowed the dots to connect across these seemingly disparate events, forming a broader image of law enforcement's push against the reverberating ripples of crime.
