Published: July 09, 2008 07:55 am            

Suspected burglar behind bars

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

The Jacksonville Police Department has arrested the man believed to be responsible for the burglaries of several businesses in the past two weeks. Michael Anthony Jones, 39, was taken into custody Saturday evening and charged with burglary of a building, failure to identify as a fugitive and fugitive in possession of a firearm.

Officer Jon Shobert was patrolling in the 300 block of Main Street about 5:20 p.m. when he recognized Jones.

“The officer observed Jones walking down the street, and knowing he had active warrants out for his arrest, made contact with him. When Officer Shobert asked Jones what his name was, he gave two fictitious names,” said Detective Daniel Franklin. “Officer Shobert, knowing that the subject was Michael Jones, placed him under arrest at that time for failure to identify. Prior to putting him in the vehicle, Jones was searched and a glass crack pipe was located on his person.”

JPD believes Jones is responsible for the burglary of the Huttash Body Shop last Wednesday, and a warrant for his arrest was issued later in the week for that crime. While Franklin suspects Jones is involved in the break-ins of several other Jacksonville businesses, only one count of burglary has been filed at this time.

“Mr. Jones is believed to be the subject we are looking for who committed many of the recent business burglaries. We are still evaluating all the evidence from the crime scenes,” he said. “At this point we don’t have anything positively tying him to the other scenes, but he is a person of interest in the other burglaries as well.”

Jones has not yet been arraigned. He was issued a citation for possession of drug paraphernalia in reference to the crack pipe.

“He’s got an extensive history of burglaries, and he just got out of the pen for burglary. In the past he has always worked alone, so we don’t believe at this time that anyone else was involved,” Franklin said.



Drug arrest

JPD also made a drug arrest Saturday night; confiscating both crack cocaine and marijuana in the process. Authorities believe the bust was made immediately after the suspect purchased the contraband substances.

“Officer (Charles) Goodwin was in the 400 block of Main Street, watching a known prostitution and crack house, when he observed a vehicle pull up to that location. The vehicle stopped in the roadway and an apparent drug transaction occurred,” Franklin said. “When the vehicle left that location, Officer Goodwin followed behind it and attempted to initiate a traffic stop on the vehicle.”

When the vehicle refused to pull over when the officer activated his lights and siren, Officer Goodwin followed the actor six city blocks back to his residence.

Officer Goodwin then arrested the man, later identified as Gary Warren, 30, in his driveway. He was found to be in possession of about 10 grams of crack cocaine and 4 grams of marijuana.

“That’s quite a bit of cocaine. It was separately packaged, with each rock packaged into 32 small bags. The officer wasn’t able to actually see a drug deal take place, so no arrests were made back at the scene of the transaction,” Franklin said. “He was charged with possession of marijuana, evading arrest with a vehicle and the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance.”

Warren’s bonds were set at $10,000 for evading arrest, $2,000 for possession of the marijuana and $40,000 for the crack charge.



Quiet July 4

Mixing gunpowder, drinking alcohol and busy traffic may sound like a recipe for trouble, but Franklin said the Independence Day holiday rarely causes any trouble for local law enforcement.

“We didn’t have any DWIs (driving while intoxicated) this weekend that I know of, and we didn’t have much of a problem with public intoxication. We typically don’t see a lot of criminal activity on the Fourth of July. I’m sure there is a lot of heavy drinking during the holiday, but it’s not really reflected in the arrests we had this weekend,” he said.

Despite the absence of major crimes, JPD was kept busy Friday night, responding to 12 separate calls about ordinance violations between 8 p.m. and midnight.

“Anytime you have someone shooting off fireworks within the city limits, you are going to have neighbors call in to report the ordinance violations,” Franklin said. “Usually the officers will make contact with the owner of the fireworks, and if it is a big violation, they will confiscate the fireworks and issue a citation. Whether a citation is given is based on the officer’s discretion.”

        

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