The burglary ring bust story has really taken the SCV by storm. I saw people discussing it on Twitter, Facebook, and of course here. It’s a troubling story and it seems to be making people uncomfortable.
The story that’s emerging is that this loosely connected ring of thieves made a living of performing petty to medium-level thefts of individuals, retail stores, and companies throughout the SCV and SFV. They then quickly pawned off their ill-begotten goods and, according to one Deputy, used the money to fund purchases of heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana, which they apparently consumed together, communally, in 900-1200 sq. ft. opium dens/flophouses in Valencia and Newhall.
Yes, from the heart of Awesometown this bleak news story exploded on the SCV stage yesterday. One of the opium dens was in on Arroyo Park, a stone’s throw from Granary Square in the center of the Master Plan at the bottom of the Summit, and one in Circle J ranch, identified in reports as “Newhall,” but really in that vague no-man’s land between Saugus and Newhall near the perchlorate storage facility otherwise known as Whitaker Bermite.
What really catapulted this story up was the arrest of 50 year old Traci Pontecorvo, a woman who was well-connected in this town, who had a respectable job selling membership in the powerful SCV Chamber of Commerce, whose Facebook page says she’s friends with several important people in town. Back in her prime, I bet Traci graced the society pages of Michele Buttelmen’s weekly column, which is more than most of us can say.
The “How the mighty have fallen” and “Long arm of the law” angles aside, this story makes me uncomfortable and a bit sad. I don’t know how to relate to these people and I don’t understand how they chose to live such an uncertain, bleak existence in Santa Clarita, which, all things considered is a really nice place to live. One suspect’s story jumps out above all others. A 25 year old woman was among those arrested last week and so I, like many of you I suspect, Googled her name. The first hit was her Facebook page and reading through her wall -which is set for public view- I got a sense of her life, her family situation, and saw in her posts foreshadows of what was to go down in the near future.
The woman, we’ll call her Tonya, has posted off and on on her Facebook page for months. Earlier this year, she started a countdown timer in her status entries. “Only 10 days left!” she’d write, and all her friends would chime in with joy.
“9 days left,”, “4 days left,” and on and on until finally I realized what she was writing about. Tonya was counting down the days before her boyfriend/husband (it’s not clear) was to be released from the state correctional facility in Susanville California. He (his name is also in the list of suspects the Sheriff’s Station released) had apparently been incarcerated for two years.
In between the countdown, Tonya posted gleefully about her child, which could be the 2 year old mentioned in the Sheriff’s release. She noted the first time her child successfully used a toilet, she talked about reuniting the toddler with her father, and constantly updated her friends and family about the baby. This is standard stuff you could read on any Valencia mom’s facebook page.
And then, just like that, one status entry read, “Only 43 more days until I’m done with this Prop 36 crap!”
Which sent me back to Google, where I found a description of Prop 36:
The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, also known as Proposition 36, was passed by 61% of California voters on November 7, 2000. This vote permanently changed state law to allow first- and second-time nonviolent, simple drug possession offenders the opportunity to receive substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration. Proposition 36 went into effect on July 1, 2001, with $120 million for treatment services allocated annually for five years
So Tonya has had a history of drug abuse and has been caught before. But instead of incarcerating her for a non-violent drug offense, the people of California offered her a substance abuse treatment program, which she apparently dreaded but worked her way through (she posted about it in April…I wonder if she completed it).
With her significant other about to be released from prison and nearing the completion of her program, maybe Tonya figured her life was about to get better.
Until last week when she, along with her just-released significant other and 14 other alleged abusers and thieves, got busted in the largest burglary rings the SCV has seen in a long time. And now her Facebook posts, in which she expressed hope and motherly pride & love as well as hints of dark secrets and deadly addictions, have ended.
I’m all for justice and I hate thieves but it’s still kind of hard to see another person’s life through a series of Facebook posts, knowing that it’s about to crumble and crash down. I suspect a lot of these people were relatively normal before the pernicious effect of drugs forced them into this desperate and bleak life.
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