It was a textbook case of teamwork fighting crime.

First a neighbor noticed suspicious activity in the 1600 block of Snapdragon Way, got a description of several subjects and noted the type of car they had and then called 9-1-1.

Then dispatch alerted veteran officer Shawn Cavin. Instead of heading to the crime scene he used his experience to move to a location near the 120 Bypass where he expected the suspects to flee.

His years of experience fighting crime paid off as the suspect vehicle passed his vantage point. When he attempted a traffic stop, the vehicle sped away. The chase was on.

It went through Tracy and all the way to Dublin involving the Alameda Sherriff’s Office and the CHP before the vehicle was lost in freeway traffic on the afternoon of Dec. 12. But then officers picked it up again and ended up making arrests.

The net result was $100,000 in stolen property received that had been taken from Manteca homes, three criminal suspects arrested, and a gun taken off the streets.

Manteca Police Chief Nick Obligacion - along with the Manteca City Council - honored Cavin on Tuesday for his well executed response to the burglary call. At $100,000, it was one of the largest single recoveries of items stolen in a residential burglary in Manteca during 2011.

Manteca Police in 2011 recovered 39.3 percent or $2,316,980 worth of the $5,890,608 worth of property that was reported stolen. That represented a 56.73 percent increase in the amount of recovered stolen property over 2010 levels.

“It wasn’t just me,” Cavin said. “It was a true team effort.”

He noted if it wasn’t for meticulous and thorough cataloguing of stolen items by community service officer Shaun Ferraro that the amount of recovered items wouldn’t have had such a high dollar value.

Obligacion pointed out that a key component of police work is having citizens report suspicious activities and providing police with accurate and prompt information.