Prolific Car Burglar Arrested Again

A Santa Barbara gang member was arrested for the third time since early 2012 for his alleged crime of choice: car burglary. Early Wednesday morning, Santa Barbara police officers arrested Cameron Hadighi, 25, after he was seen breaking into an unlocked truck. Hadighi, who was already on probation for an earlier burglary charge, was charged with misdemeanor vehicle tampering and prowling and was booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on $2,500 bail, as well as a no-bail detainer for violating probation.

After midnight on October 30, officers responded to a call about a car break-in in an alley on the 3000 block of State Street. Just as they arrived, a man — later identified by the truck’s owner as the burglar — ran away, at one point running across the roofs of buildings on the 3100 and 3200 blocks of State Street. Police, along with ladder-wielding firefighters, ordered Hadighi to come down, at which point he was arrested.

Hadighi had previously been arrested in April 2012 — on two charges of felony car burglary and misdemeanor resisting an officer — and earlier in January 2012, where his theft of an iPad was uncovered by the iPad’s GPS-using owner. When detectives tracked the iPad to the house where Hadighi was living, he admitted to stealing not only the iPad but also other items in his home. Police later found that Hadighi had committed five car burglaries and had attempted to steal a car. He is believed to have committed as many as 40 car burglaries in Santa Barbara before that January arrest.