OMG PD: ‘Stealing Is What I Do’

'Stealing Is What I do':

When a Cranston police officer approached a 50-year-old Providence man riding his bike while toting a white bag the night of Nov. 1, they asked him what he was doing. "I'm out here stealing," he said. "Stealing is what I do." The man was wearing a coat that was "bulging," police said. He had been going into unlocked cars and lifting GPS systems and more. He was arraigned, ordered to pay restitution and serve a one-year suspended sentence. Just five days later, he was back at it. Officers were called around 2:30 a.m. for a report of a man on a bicycle stealing from a car. This time, officers found him carrying a GPS unit, a Norelco razor and a Sirius XM radio. "I broke in a couple of cars, up and down the block," he reportedly told officers. He had another year of probation added to his original charge.

Partners for life, partners in crime
A husband and wife in their thirties were arrested for shoplifting after they visited a Portsmouth liquor store and allegedly slipped a bottle of wine and a bottle of kahlua into the woman’s handbag. They were apparently caught on the store’s security camera.

Practically turning himself in
A 41-year-old Middletown man led officers down the path to his own arrest after calling police to report that he had been assaulted at the end of a night at the bar. When officers arrived at the restaurant at about 1:45 a.m., they learned from two witnesses that the man was the assailant, not the victim. When officers began to explain the situation, the man apparently threw himself on the hood of his car – making it that much easier for officers to get the cuffs on.

Alert officer spoils home invasion
An alert East Providence police officer spoiled what would have been a home invasion, with possibly three masked men entering an occupied home in the middle of the day. The incident began when the officer spotted a Chrysler rolling along with a smashed windshield and the trunk popped open. He briefly lost the car but caught up to it when he spotted two men standing suspiciously by the side of the road in a residential area. When he approached, the two men ran inside a nearby residence. That’s when the officer spotted another man wearing a mask and standing beside the Chrysler parked in the driveway. The masked man bolted, and the officer chasing him banged his head and needed stitches, but officers eventually caught the runner, the two men hiding inside the house, and the plan to allegedly invade the house – where the occupants were allegedly smoking pot. All three would-be invaders were arrested.

Road-rager breaks his own leg
One man wound up arrested, and in the hospital, after a road rage incident began in North Attleboro and ended on an Attleboro street corner. The 38-year-old Attleboro resident apparently broke his leg while kicking the other car after the two drivers stopped and a face-to-face confrontation ensued. The man was charged with malicious damage, assault because of the verbal threats made against the other driver and operating so as to endanger.

Authorities bust fake T-passes ring
Four people, including an Attleboro woman, were indicted by a Grand Jury for their involvement in selling millions of dollars worth of illegal MBTA monthly passes to riders. According to the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, one of the four produced more than 20,000 fraudulent passes worth millions of dollars and that at least $2 million worth of those passes were never in service because the passes had been dated and activated for use as far in the future as November 2012. The three co-conspirators apparently sold those passes at discounted rates – many of them advertised on craigslist – and returned a portion of the sales to the man generating the passes. The scheme unraveled after a conductor noticed the color of a pass that looked odd. Further investigation showed that while the ticket was authentic, the MBTA database had no record of it being activated and the MBTA had not received payment for it.

Five thieves, one DVD
A gang of five people collaborated to steal one WWE wrestling DVD from a store in the Wakefield Mall. A store employee told police that a female member of the group tried to distract him, while the rest of the gang glanced around nervously. One of the young men knelt down in the aisle and then the full group left the store.

That’s not very ladylike
A 37-year-old Cranston woman was arrested in East Greenwich after she got into a fight with another woman. When officers arrived, she was screaming and swearing, and they told her to stop, or she’d be arrested. She did not stop, so they arrested here. While en route to the station, she allegedly spit repeatedly in the police cruiser, then tested her spitting skills in the station’s cell.