Two Carmel Valley men who bought the contents of a storage locker that was auctioned Feb. 18 by reality TV star Dave Hester at Marina U-Store discovered their booty included thousands of dollars worth of police uniforms and equipment that might have been boosted from multiple Central Coast agencies.
Jesse Crawford, 36, and his father, Craig Butcher, 62, paid $825 (plus fees) for the contents of the locker at an auction conducted by Hester, who became famous on the A&E series “Storage Wars.”
Crawford and Butcher called police Saturday after discovering what they had. Marina police officers arrived Thursday with two trucks to haul off multiple items, including radio equipment, sirens, police reports and photographs, handcuffs, mace, urine-test kits, expandable batons, a Code-3 police light and retro detective lights.
Also confiscated, said Crawford and Butcher, were about 80 police uniforms and firefighter turnouts (protective clothing) that were the property of Marina, Santa Cruz and Salinas police, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, animal control and the Salinas Fire Department.
Also turned over were two police badges — one from the Marina Police Department, the other from Salinas Police Department — and a key ring with numerous keys.
