Car Burglar Busted After Cops Track Footprints In The Snow

It was a whodunnit of proportions usually seen on Saturday morning children’s cartoons. A crime was in progress, but the suspect had left the scene. How will they find him?

Oh, the criminal mastermind left footprints in the snow.

That’s what happened yesterday, allowing officers from the NYPD’s 70th Precinct and the Flatbush Shomrim to track their suspect down post-haste after neighbors allegedly spotted him attempting to break into a vehicle.

Cops arrested 20-year-old Terell St. John at a residence near Bedford Avenue and Avenue J yesterday morning and charged him with unauthorized use of a vehicle and possession of an open container of alcohol, according to VosIzNeias.com.

Terell and an unidentified man were seen by neighbors at East 27th Street and Avenue P at approximately 3:20am, testing car door handles, presumably to find an unlocked vehicle.

The neighbors called Shomrim, which dispatched units to the scene. The suspects were already gone, but members of the volunteer patrol began following a trail of footprints in the snow.

The site reports:

“It was 3:30 in the morning and there was really nobody else around,” noted [Bob Moskovitz, of Flatbush Shomrim].

The two suspects parted ways, with one entering an apartment building. Shomrim followed the other to Avenue J and Bedford Avenue.

“Our member saw him go in and out of driveways and go into a car,” said Moskovitz. “At that point, we activated the system and called the police. We pointed out the perp who had no idea that he had been followed and we woke up the homeowner whose car he was in and got him to file a complaint.”

An officer from the 70th Precinct made the arrest, and precinct’s command offered would-be criminals some advice on Twitter: