Gun Video Helps Nab Member of Texas' Most Wanted List

If there’s one thing police pray for other than a safe shift, it’s probably dumb criminals. After all, they make the officers’ jobs so much easier.

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Take, for example, Christopher Ricardo Gonzalez, and 18-year-old member of the Texas arm of the notorious Bloods gang. Despite his relatively young age, Gonzalez had made it onto the Texas Most Wanted list but was nowhere to be found in the Lonestar State. He was as free and clear as a gangbanger could be…

…until he had a dose of the stupid.

One of Texas’ 10 most wanted criminal suspects was taken into custody by Los Angeles police early Tuesday after he displayed video of an arsenal of weapons on Instagram that authorities used to track him to Woodlands Hills.

Christopher Ricardo Gonzalez, 18, a Texas gang member with a lengthy history of violent robberies, home invasions and alleged murder, was captured by the LAPD after Dallas police were able to track his position when he posted a video of himself on Instagram displaying a gun collection, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the arrest.

Los Angeles police said Gonzalez was taken into custody with the help of a police K-9 about 2 a.m near Serrania Avenue.

Detectives in Dallas provided the LAPD with GPS coordinates for the Instagram post and an LAPD fugitive team found a rented Chevrolet SUV connected to Gonzalez.

Unfortunately, only one of the firearms featured in the video has been recovered. Whether Gonzalez ever had possession of all of those weapons is very much in doubt, in my opinion, though police will likely continue to search just to be sure.

A witness to the capture actually praised police restraint.

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Woodland Hills homeowner Todd Melnik watched the end of the chase and the subsequent arrests play out in his front yard and recounted the drama to local news outlet ABC7.

“I started hearing the suspect screaming,” Melnik said. “They called the dog off of him and then they ordered him to crawl backwards from inside the bushes next to my fence, backwards onto my front lawn.”

Melnik added that he thought the police officers showed restraint in the arrests and used non-lethal rounds against the suspects.

“I thought there was going to be a shooting on my front lawn, honest to God. It was a really dramatic moment.”

It’s a good thing that another dangerous criminal like Gonzalez is off the streets, and I hope that absolutely none of his ilk learn from his example and continue to post things on social media that makes it easier for the police to lock onto them and make the arrest.

I doubt I’ll be that fortunate, which means the boys and girls in blue won’t be that fortunate, but a guy can dream, right?

Still, I suspect there will be no dearth of criminal stupidity to take its place. I’m pretty sure the two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity, and crooks like Gonzalez have done nothing to dissuade me from that opinion.

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