Officer arrests suspect in Bartlett High car burglaries
The Bartlett Police Department (BPD) handled the following incidents during May 1-8, including the almost immediate May 4 arrest of a suspect in a string of auto burglaries at Bartlett High School.
Officers were still interviewing witnesses at the school when a fellow officer spotted the male suspect, who also had drug paraphernalia with him. An alert witness provided the tag number and vehicle description that led to the arrest.
Good Samaritans in Bartlett also unwittingly foiled an apparent attempt at a Jeep theft on May 5 when they advised police of a man they thought had car trouble.
This listing includes the most notable incidents for the reporting period and does not necessarily reflect all police activity.
Editor’s note: All suspects are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and values are estimated for stolen/damaged items. These are brief summaries of detailed BPD reports.
May 1
Carolot Lane (theft from yard)
A woman reported May 1 that she paid someone (the suspect) for a sprinkler system backflow valve and its installation ($450) but the person was not able to finish the installation on April 28. The installer called the next day to say he was coming by after getting a part for the valve. During the call, the woman said she wasn’t happy with the service and told him not to return.
She hired a second service provider to finish the installation on May 1.That person arrived around 11 a.m. and left after completing the installation.
When the woman returned home around 4 p.m. May 1, she discovered that the backflow valve was missing.
May 2
Unspecified address (identity theft)
A man reported May 2 that someone changed the address for his U.S. Bank Visa credit card without his knowledge between March 27 and April 3. His AAA identity protection service alerted him to the address change, and he cancelled the card and received a new one with a new number.
Cedar Road (fraud)
A suspect withdrew $300 from an ATM in Altamonte Springs, Fla., using the information from a woman’s Regions Visa card on April 30. The victim cancelled the card, and she learned that the suspect tried to use the card information again on May 1 in Hanes City, Fla.
Germantown Road (theft of trailer)
Someone stole a trailer ($2,750) from a man’s property between 4:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. May 2. The victim reported the theft the same day, saying the trailer was parked offset from his driveway with a ball lock on the hitch.
He described the stolen item as a red 16-foot double-axle Lin Neal trailer with a rear liftgate, silver wheels and a dovetail hitch for a two-inch ball. He reported there was a bed frame, stroller and four tires stored on the truck.
Guillory Street (theft of mail)
A woman returned home at 3:05 p.m. May 2 to see a blue truck in front of her home and a black male running away from her porch with a package in his hands. She realized it was her Amazon.com package of a DreamWorks character paint kit ($11.05). She had received an alert of the package delivery earlier that day.
May 3
Stage Road (theft)
A woman reported May 3 that someone stole her personal items from a secured locker at Planet Fitness (5740 Stage Road). She left the items in Locker No. 16 at 8:30 p.m. May 2, and the next evening she discovered that the lock and the locker’s contents were missing around 6 p.m.
May 4
Stage Road (armed robbery)
Three unknown black males robbed Bartlett Prescription Shop (5675 Stage Road) just before 10 a.m. May 4. The business owner said two men entered with semi-automatic handguns and ordered employees to get down on the floor.
Suspects No. 1 and 2 wore black hoodies, black mask, white gloves, black pants and white shoes, and the first suspect’s pants had a white stripe. The third suspect had long black dreadlocks and wore a black mask, a green rain jacket and bluejeans.
The unarmed suspect jumped the counter and demanded all of the shop’s Norco, Phenergan, OxyContin, Percocet and codeine.
Once they had the drugs, they fled in a black GMC Terrain Denali with dark-tinted windows, headed west on Stage Road. The robbers got away with more than 6,000 pills and 10 units of liquid medications, a total of $1,845.71 in prescription drugs.
U.S. 64 (suspicious vehicle)
A BPD officer spotted a suspicious vehicle, a red Dodge Ram, parked at Einstein Brothers’ Bagels at 3:18 p.m. May 4. It exactly matched a truck being sought for a series of auto burglaries that had just happened at Bartlett High School, according to information the officer heard at B shift roll call. A white male suspect in those crimes was spotted in a red Dodge Ram pickup with two black front quarter panels, a toolbox in the truck bed, and silver bars over the rear windshield.
Officers were still at the high school, identifying victims and gathering information, at the time their fellow officers received the Be On the Lookout (BOLO) alert. The patrol officer contacted those officers, who provided a Tennessee tag number from a witness. (The witness confronted the suspect during the actual burglaries and was able to photograph his vehicle and license plate as he fled.)
Based on this information, the officer ordered the suspect from the vehicle and detained him.
The officer meanwhile smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the inside of the truck and saw a glass pipe in plain view in the center console. In a probable cause search of the vehicle, the officer found two glass pipes for smoking marijuana (the second was under the driver’s seat) and a grinder with marijuana residue on the driver’s floorboard.
The search also turned up an empty prescription pill bottle bearing the name of a juvenile. A check with officers still at the high school revealed that the juvenile was one of four known victims in the thefts. The bottle, believed to contain about $100 worth of amphetamine salt pills, was stolen from her unlocked Volkswagen Jetta. The officer also recovered a perfume bottle that had been reported stolen from the juvenile’s car.
The officer took the suspect into custody, advised him of his Miranda rights and transferred him to the Bartlett jail. The BPD seized his vehicle as it was used in the commission of a felony theft.
May 5
Waterfall Drive and Carat Circle (stranded motorist call)
A newspaper delivery woman noticed a man having problems with his white Jeep on Carat Circle around 4 a.m. May 5, so she called BPD to report that he needed help. Responding officers spotted the white male walking west on Steven Franklin Drive toward Earlyn Drive.
The man wore dark clothing with a heavy dark jacket, and he told officers he saw guys pushing a white Jeep on Carat Circle.
Officers noticed that the man seemed nervous while he told them he was in the military and was going for his daily morning run. He said he lived on Steven Franklin Drive and would be glad to help officers if needed.
One officer went to Carat Circle and saw the Jeep parked partially in the road, facing east on the opposite side of the road. A computer check of the license plate showed that it belonged to a resident on Carat Circle. The owner said he parked his vehicle facing west on the street around 9 p.m. the previous night.
The complainant and another witness said they spotted a man in dark jeans and a dark jacket while he was halfway inside the Jeep, pushing it west on Carat Circle. They said they and another witness tried to assist, but the man said he didn’t need any help. The other witness said he helped the man push the vehicle in the opposite direction, toward the victim’s home.
The officer saw damage to the Jeep’s steering column and the key lock to the ignition. The officer also checked on where the suspect reportedly lived, but residents there said no one by that named lived there.
The victim got his Jeep back, and all three witnesses provided written statements and confirmed via photo that the suspect was the person they spotted pushing the Jeep away from the victim’s home.
Sunray Cove (burglary)
A woman said someone burglarized her home between 7 a.m. May 4 and 2 p.m. May 5. She left a $100 bill on the kitchen table for her housekeeper on May 4 and learned the next day it was missing when her housekeeper arrived. She said the housekeeper has worked for her for several years and is definitely not a suspect.
The victim searched her home and found several other items were missing, including an iPad. The home’s back door had been pried open and taken off the hinges. She also smelled cigarette smoke in the house, which was unusual because neither she nor her visitors have ever smoked there. The responding officer found cigarette ash on the master bedroom’s floor.
The victim said she believes someone has broken into her home at least twice in the past several days. The money disappeared between when she left the home at 7 a.m. May 4 and noon that day when the housekeeper arrived. Then she used her iPad before bedtime on May 4 and discovered it was missing
The responding officer found the back master bedroom’s storm door was damaged, as was a back fence. This suggested that someone climbed the fence and entered through the back door. A trail in the grass led from the fence to the door.
The woman said she doesn’t know when the door was damaged. She keeps the storm door locked and would leave the security door unlocked but shut.
The suspect also apparently closed the security door, concealing the storm door’s damage from the victim.
The approximate total value of items taken is $1,366. The approximate value of damage to the back door is $100.
Sycamore View Road (attempted residential burglary)
On May 5, a woman reported finding tool marks on her home’s back door, as if someone had tried to pry it open. The responding officer photographed the marks.
She said she was in the process of having her home painted, and there were no marks on the freshly painted door the previous day. The damage happened between when she left for work at 5:30 a.m. and returned around 4:20 p.m.
She named her son-in-law as a suspect, saying he has broken into her home and also has stolen from her in the past. She also provided the name of her house painter for the purposes of the investigation.
U.S. 64 (vandalism)
A woman who parked at Abuelo’s (8274 U.S. 64) reported that someone scratched her car on May 5. She parked around 5 p.m. and returned around 7:30 p.m. to find a scratch about nine feet long going down the right side. Damages are estimated at $5,000.
U.S. 64 (auto burglary)
Two people who arrived at Firebirds (8470 U.S. 64) on May 5 became victims of auto burglary. They arrived around 7:30 p.m. and returned about an hour later. The woman’s purse, containing cash and personal items, was gone. The man said his Walther pistol ($300) was gone, along with $300 in cash and an OEM tools jump box.
The man said he thought he locked the vehicle, but there was no evidence of forced entry on the vehicle.
U.S. 64 (auto burglary)
A man reported May 5 that someone broke into his pickup between 6:45 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. while he was at the movies. Someone had destroyed the center console of his 2005 Ford F-150 and taken the radio. The responding officer saw damage on the driver’s side door lock, which looked as if someone had punched it out with a screwdriver. The total loss and damages are estimated at more than $1,000.
