Palo Alto: Police find young kids in car next to loaded gun after burglary arrests

Suspects linked to multiple car break-ins at Lytton Avenue parking lot; children, 2 and 3, were reportedly sitting unrestrained amid stolen property.

PALO ALTO — Police here said they found two small children sitting next to a loaded handgun and a trove of stolen property, after arresting two people suspected of repeatedly breaking into cars at the same downtown parking lot.

The suspects, San Jose residents Serena Kimberly Robinson, 22, and Desmond Warren Silas, 20, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of felony auto burglary and child endangerment, as well as misdemeanor possession of burglary tools and stolen property, and resisting arrest.

Around 6:40 p.m. Thursday, Palo Alto officers were patrolling near a parking lot at Lytton Avenue and Kipling Street when they noticed “a vehicle making slow loops” through the lot, according to a police news release. The officers, aware that the parking lot had been the site of multiple recent car burglaries, watched the vehicle and soon witnessed a man get out.

“The male suspect walked around the lot looking inside vehicles,” police wrote in the release. “Officers watched as he broke a window of a red Toyota RAV4 and pulled out a bag from the vehicle.”

That prompted the police officers to approach the man, who ran away toward the car he arrived in, police said. But that car sped away onto Lytton Avenue, leaving behind the man, who surrendered and was arrested.

Not far from the parking lot, officers stopped the fleeing car and arrested the woman who was driving. Soon after, they discovered that her two children, a 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, were in the backseat, not in car seats, within reach of a loaded semiautomatic pistol.

Also next to the children, police reported finding “a flashlight, a window punch, an industrial retail security magnet remover, and stolen property from two previous reported auto burglaries that occurred this month in Palo Alto,” according to the release.

The children were referred to the county Department of Family and Children’s Services, and eventually released to a relative.

An ensuing investigation linked Robinson and Silas to at least two other car burglaries in the parking lot, on Nov. 12 and Nov. 20, according to police, who added that the handgun found next to the children was reported lost or stolen in Milpitas.

Robinson, who was individually booked on suspicion of conspiracy to commit an auto burglary and identity theft, is being held at the Elmwood women’s jail in Milpitas on $88,000 bail. She could face more potential charges after police say a probation search of Robinson’s home — stemming from a grand theft conviction in San Mateo County — turned up high-capacity gun magazine. She also had a suspended driver’s license at the time she was reportedly operating the car carrying her children.

Silas, who was also booked on suspicion of having a stolen firearm, is being held at the adjacent Elmwood men’s jail on $73,000 bail.