Springfield Police Halt Crime Spree

After a high-tech assist and a chase in a nighttime storm, Springfield’s police department arrested two suspects in connection with a series of thefts from cars and homes throughout the area.

In the past two months Millburn-Short Hills, Union, Maplewood, South Orange and Summit began experiencing a rash in thefts from motor vehicles parked in residential driveways over night.

After pooling resources and comparing evidence, detectives from the departments in those municipalities found that the thieves were riding bicycles into towns and would try to steal a car to leave along with the items they had stolen. The stolen car would usually be left unlocked, parked in driveways.

Patrol officers in Springfield and surrounding towns were informed of intelligence information amassed by detectives.

On Tuesday, Aug. 16 at 1:07 a.m., during a severe rainstorm, a Berkeley Road resident called Springfield police to report hearing glass breaking. Lt. Damon Quirk and Officers James Mirabile and Ryan Westover raced over to the area. The glass had been broken in an attempt to enter an attached garage of a house on Berkeley Rd. The officers found a bicycle lying in the street by the curb near the house and concluded they had scared off the perpetrators.

Lt. Quirk came upon a suspect inside of a van in the driveway of house on Garden Oval, who fled into the wooded area that borders the Meisel Park. At the same time, Officer Westover chased a second suspect into the wooded area.

Dozens of back-up police units responded to the area from Union, Mountainside, Summit and Union County police departments. The Union County Sheriff's K-9 responded. But due to the rain, it appeared the suspects had got away.

However, Springfield police had a high-tech trick up their sleeve. They contacted the Springfield Fire Department to use of their thermal heat-imaging camera, a device normally used by firefighters to detect heat behind walls. Police have found that it can detect body heat given in areas where the surrounding temperature is below the usual body temperature of 98.6 degrees.

Using the camera, the officers found a suspect hiding underneath a large hedge in the rear yard of a house on Garden Oval. Officer James Mirabile arrested the suspect, who Lt. Quirk identified as the suspect he had seen trying to steal a van from a residential driveway on Garden Oval.

While searching the area, police found a bicycle on Riverside Drive they believe was abandoned by someone connected to the thefts. Also, officers found evidence suggesting someone had tried to steal a vehicle from the driveway of a house on Riverside Drive. The vehicle had cars parked in the driveway behind it, and the suspects drove the car forward into the back yard of the house only to find their exit blocked by a rear yard fence. Police found the bicycle was stolen from a house on South Maple Avenue.

Police arrested a 17-year-old male resident of Union and charged him with 11 criminal charges, including motor vehicle burglary, bicycle theft, criminal mischief and resisting arrest. He was remanded to the Union County juvenile detention facility in Linden.

Springfield detectives have identified a second suspect, also a juvenile from the Vauxhall section of Union, and believe that the two subjects, possibly with others, are responsible for the series of late night auto burglaries/thefts in Millburn and other nearby towns that have been occurring for at least the past two months.