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Cop’s instincts foil suspects after burglary || 911 AUDIO
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WARREN — Sgt. Jeff Cole’s instincts took him to the right place Wednesday afternoon, resulting in the arrest of two men police say ordered a 12-year-old Westwood Drive Northwest boy to the floor while they stole jewelry, a television and video-game equipment from his parents’ house.
All available officers began to search the city for a metallic red four-door car the men were driving when they left the home at just before 3 p.m.
Cole, a detective who also serves as the Warren Police Department’s public information officer, left the police station and headed to the Hampshire House Apartments on Fifth Street Southwest, because it’s a “hot spot” for criminal activity, he said.
“We were just canvassing the whole area,” Cole said.
There he spotted a metallic, red car at 1375 Fifth Street S.W. containing two men.
Cole and Sgt. Greg Hoso detained the two men and found items in their pockets later identified as coming from the robbery, including the driver’s license of the boy’s mother. They also found a Nintendo DS game system taken from the house, Cole said.
Not foundd was a 40-inch television, credit cards or the third man who allegedly participated in the robbery, Cole said.
Scheduled to be video arraigned in Warren Municipal Court today from the Trumbull County Jail are Shon L. Thompson, 20, of Fifth Street Southwest and O’Mearo L. Beaver, 19, of Commerce Street Northwest. Both face charges of aggravated burglary and kidnapping, first-degree felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Cole said the boy was just coming out of the bathroom when he saw three men in the house, who ordered him to lie on the floor while they went through the house taking valuables.
The boy’s mother had just left the home a short time before the robbery and returned just after it was over, Cole said, adding that the burglars did not injure him.
Police said they photographed shoe prints in the snow at the house that matched the tennis shoes Thompson was wearing.