Kidnap, carjacking suspect arrested in Salinas

It didn’t take more than a few minutes before ShotSpotter paid off for the Salinas Police Department.

Just after going live for the first time Wednesday night, the shot detection system recorded two gunshots. Before long, police had arrested a man suspected of a kidnapping and carjacking.

According to police, ShotSpotter alerted them to two gunshots in the in the 300 block of Towt Street. Officers arrived to find the Miguel Orozco Solano, 30, sitting in the passenger seat of a parked truck. A woman was sitting in the truck’s driver seat.

Solano was suspected of a kidnap and carjacking that happened on Tuesday on Towt Street on Tuesday. Police say he demanded at gunpoint that a man drive him to Watsonville. After a few blocks, police say Solano told the driver to leave the car and drove off.

Officers found a handgun behind the truck’s passenger seat and a shell casing nearby. Police say the gun belonged to Solano, and he’d fired it twice into the air.

Solano was booked into the Monterey County Jail on charges of carjacking, kidnapping, and discharging a firearm in a negligent manner.