YUMA, Ariz. – Yuma Police have arrested a person who allegedly left a suspicious backpack at the Yuma Police Department station.
Police have identified the suspect as 35-year-old Renee Tagliafero. She was arrested Thursday night while walking around 16th Street. Tagliafero was booked into the Yuma County Detention Center and charged with one count of hoax.
Sergeant Lori Franklin with YPD says Tagliafero dropped off the backpack Thursday morning and surveillance video showed her covering her face.
“They ducked down and they knew there was a camera there,” says Franklin.
Police say it’s the way the suspect dropped off the package that created suspicion of what was inside and what led the Yuma County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad to get involved.
“Just the way it took place and the way they backpack was placed, it alerted us and we are going to take every precaution we can,” says Franklin.
This is not the first time police have dealt with Tagliafero. Police recognized her in the surveillance video because she has been arrested before.
“We have had contact with her before, as reference to what she has been arrested for and contacted for. I’m not going to get into but we have had contact with her before several times and she was in our system,” says Franklin.
All that was found in the backpack was clothes and miscellaneous items. Police say they treated the matter very seriously and took every precaution they could.
Franklin says, “We need to take these things seriously and we are going to continue to make these things seriously and if we catch a person who does it we are going to charge them.”
The case is still under investigation, anyone with any information is encouraged to call the YPD.
