Two men arrested at the Amtrak bus station in Santa Barbara on August 21 were carrying loaded semi-automatic handguns with extended magazines, reported the Coastal Division of the CHP this Wednesday. A phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers and local police departments had followed Diego Tostado Galvan and Jeremiah Samuel Caldwell as they traveled from Santa Cruz last Thursday, locating them at the bus station at 1:30 p.m.
Galvan was wanted on a warrant charging a felony probation violation for firearm convictions, which had started the manhunt, said Officer J. Richards with the CHP Coastal Division. In their luggage were four more firearms and an assault rifle. The two were booked for carrying a loaded firearm in a public place or street, and for possessing assault weapons. Both Galvan and Caldwell were 19 years old, Galvan from Watsonville and Caldwell from Castro Valley.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office took part in the investigation, serving a search warrant on an apartment in Isla Vista. Another semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine was found there, and Hamlet Daniel Solis, 20, of Oakland was taken into custody. Further search warrants in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and Alameda counties turned up one more firearm.
Richards noted that law enforcement in Watsonville, Gilroy, Morgan Hill, and Alameda, and Santa Clara counties had taken part in tracking Galvan, and that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) were also involved. “We hold the guns during the court process, but once the case is over, we’re able to destroy them,” he said.
