People v. Lopez CA4/3

FACTS

A loss prevention worker saw a man walk out of a Home Depot store in Huntington Beach with unpaid merchandise. When the worker identified himself, the man abandoned the merchandise and got into the front passenger seat of a white Chevy Colorado truck. The worker reported the truck’s license plate number to the police. A nearby police officer stopped a white Colorado with the same license plate number “just east” of the store. The front passenger matched the description of the man who took the items from Home Depot. There were two occupants in the back seat. In the truck’s uncovered bed, the officer saw packaged Home Depot merchandise. The worker arrived at the truck with another officer and identified the front passenger as the man he had confronted. The worker told the officers the merchandise in the truck bed was from another Home Depot store. The officers ordered the driver, Lopez, to exit the truck. Lopez claimed: “But sir, I gave somebody a ride.” A third police officer searched her, finding a bag appearing to contain methamphetamine in her left bra cup. The officers searched the truck. Inside of “a purse on the floorboard of the driver’s seat” were “two pipes . . .…