Warren tattoo artist mistakenly arrested, jailed for a week; actual suspect still free

WARREN

Artist Aaron Chine says it’s disappointing that despite his downtown tattoo business, promotion of the city and charity work, police arrested him in April based on one flawed identification.

“I’m a 36-year-old married man with a successful business who’s never been in trouble for drugs or anything like that,” he said.

Yet, after a woman told a police officer that she saw Chine emerge from a vacant house on Willard Avenue Northeast on April 8 where a break-in had just occurred, police tried to question him, then arrested him for the break-in a few days later after he declined to be interviewed.

Chine was released from the county jail six days later, after Warren police viewed surveillance video from the tattoo shop that indicated Chine couldn’t have committed the break-in because he was at the business. The charge was dismissed.

Three weeks ago, Warren police filed a charge of breaking and entering against Andrew T. Jordan, 24, of Brier Street Southeast, charging him with the Willard break-in.

Jordan has not yet appeared in Warren Municipal Court to be arraigned because he’s in a drug-rehabilitation center, said Sgt. Joe Kistler with the Warren Police Department’s detective bureau.

When contacted by The Vindicator Wednesday, Chine said it’s surprising that police haven’t put Jordan in jail by now.

“They arrested me from work,” he said. “The only evidence they had was this lady.”

Read more about the case in Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.