2 In Custody After Stealing Dirt Bikes From Bucks Co. Home: Police

HILLTOWN TOWNSHIP, PA — Two men are in custody and facing burglary charges after breaking into a home in Hilltown Township early Tuesday morning.

The Hilltown Township Police Department responded to a home on Callowhill Road at 2:30 a.m. for a burglary in progress.

The owner of the home had received an alert on his phone that an interior garage camera had been disconnected. When the owner went to check the garage, he found a door to the garage open and two gas powered dirt bikes and an electric dirt bike missing.

As officers were arriving on the scene, they heard the dirt bikes starting up on an adjacent road. Officers went in search of the bikes and the suspects.

After learning from a passerby that the bikes were on Route 113 headed towards Route 313, Hilltown officers communicated the information over county radio.

At approximately 2:50 a.m., a Pennridge Regional police officer was waiting in the area of Route 313 and 5th Street when the two dirt bikes and a vehicle approached her location. The officer immediately attempted a traffic stop on the vehicle, a white Chrysler 200, which had a stolen electric dirt bike hanging out of the trunk.

While the officer was making the stop, the two dirt bike riders fled in different directions.

The driver of the vehicle - Yalexander Muniz of Reading - was taken into custody.

One of the dirt bikes was found immediately after the traffic stop abandoned just off Route 313. \

Surrounding agencies in Upper Bucks County as well as a K9 unit from Solebury Township responded to the scene and assisted in attempting to locate the remaining suspects.

At 4:30 a.m., a Perkasie Borough Officer located a Infiniti sedan stopped on Ridge Road in the area of Schoolhouse Lane with its hazard lights activated. The officer spoke with the occupants of the vehicle and learned that they were from the Reading area with no connection to the Perkasie area.

Officers and a detective from Hilltown Township conducted interviews of the occupants. Through the roadside investigation, the front seat passenger, identified as Joel Gerardo Santiago-Lopez, was found to be the suspect who ditched the stolen dirt bike and fled on foot. Santiago-Lopez was taken into custody.

Police are continuing to investigate the burglary, identify the third suspect and locate the last stolen dirt bike.

Yalexander Muniz, 22, and Joel Santiago-Lopes, 22, were arraigned in front of Magisterial District Judge Regina Armitage of New Britain who remanded them to Bucks County Prison on 10% of $75,000 bail.

The men are charged with burglary, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, loitering and prowling at night and criminal mischief.

The Hilltown Township Police Department was assisted by the Pennridge Regional Police Department, the Perkasie Borough Police Department, the Richland Township Police Department, the Quakertown Borough Police Department, the New Britain Township Police Department,
the Solebury Township Police Department and the Pennsylvania State Police.