3 Arrested In Car Theft

Two passersby said they couldn’t help cops investigating the theft of a Buick Rendezvous, and kept walking. Moments later the police guarding the stolen car found out they’d just spoken with the suspects they were looking for.

They caught up with the women and made the arrest.

Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman:

Just before 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Officers Dennis Mastriano and Dana Martin responded to Clinton Avenue in Fair Haven on a report of a robbery. A man there told them he had parked his girlfriend’s Buick Rendezvous nearby while he visited a friend. When he returned to the car, a man approached him from behind and put a knife to his throat while demanding the car keys. The victim said he handed over the keys and the robber got in the car with three women. The drove toward Chatham Street and the victim called the cops.

Officers David Acosta and Lars Vallin headed to the area, along with Sgt. Pasquale Marino, who found the car. It was parked in front of a house on Exchange Street. The victim’s girlfriend, the owner of the car, arrived and identified the car as hers. ​“She also noticed that it had been freshly dented,” Hartman said.

Officer Acosta took and translated the victim’s descriptions of the robbers. Meanwhile, as cops waited for a tow truck to take the car to the impound yard, two women walked out of the house on Exchange Street and started walking toward Poplar Street.

“Officer Mastriano asked if they knew who’d been in the Buick,” Hartman said. ​“Both said no and kept walking. A minute or so passed and the suspect descriptions were broadcast. The two women were suspects. Officers Acosta & Valin were directed to find them. They did — on Poplar Street, near Grand Avenue.”

Police arrested the 28-year-old and 20-year-old women. They found a third woman, 37 years old, in the bathroom on the first floor of the building on Exchange Street, which was an unoccupied apartment.

The women offered a couple of different stories, including that the man who had his car stolen had solicited one of them as a prostitute and driven them there and that he had picked them up after their car broke down. One woman told cops the three women had gone to Exchange Street to smoke crack. They were each arrested and charged with robbery, larceny, and conspiracy.

In other police news, according to Hartman:

Dunkin Donuts Robbed: A shotgun-wielding man with black bandanna over his face robbed a Sam’s Mart/Dunkin Donuts on Kimberly Avenue at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday.

“Tying His Shoe”: At 8:19 p.m. on Sunday police began investigating a robbery and assault on Fountain Street. Three people said they’d parked on Barnett Street and were walking to Fountain Street when they spotted a man bent down and tying his shoe. As they passed, the man stood up, pulled a ski mask over his face and demanded a cellphone and money. He hit one of the three on his left cheek and made off with a phone and some cash.