She’s tough on crime – personally
Mayor’s keen eye helps catch alleged culprits in heists from empty homes
WOONSOCKET – She’s been mayor since 2013, but if she keeps acting like this, pretty soon they’ll be calling her Sheriff Baldelli-Hunt.
When Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt saw two men dressed like public works employees nosing around a cityowned house on River Street Wednesday, her first thought was that there was some sort of structural or utility problem with the blighted property. She stopped to inquire and quickly realized they weren’t who they seemed to be.
What happened in the next few moments led members of the Woonsocket Police Department on a foot pursuit, to the discovery of a stolen home furnace worth $2,000, and the arrest of Edison Taveras-Gar- cia, 28, of Providence. He faces a string of felonies, including breaking and entering a dwelling house with felonious intent; conspiracy and receiving stolen goods.
After police corralled Taveras-Garcia on Morse Avenue, it was Baldelli-Hunt they summoned for some facetime with the suspect to make a positive ID before he was taken into custody for booking.
It all went down as Baldelli-Hunt drove home from City Hall, a little after 4 p.m. The mayor was approaching a group of houses the city purchased recently as part of its blight eradication program when she saw two men standing in front of 179 River St., wearing reflective green vests similar to those of public
works employees.
Her first thought was that there must have been some sort of problem with one of the buildings, so she stopped to find out what and confronted the men.
“I immediately recognized they were not our highway workers,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
Baldelli-Hunt said she didn’t feel nervous or threatened by the strangers in any way, but she was still curious why they would be poking around city-owned property. She questioned them, and one indicated that they were interested in buying the house. Now suspicious, Baldelli-Hunt suggested she might be able to help.
“I know the owner,” she said, handing one of the men a pad and something to write with. He provided a telephone number and signed it, “Eddy.”
Eddy nervously hurried away, joining his friend, who was already making his way into a white van parked nearby. The van started moving and did a quick U-turn on River Street, doubling back toward the city.
Baldelli-Hunt was already on the phone to Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III when she noticed the fleeing van didn’t have a front license plate. The mayor gave Oates a description of the van and, moments later, Lt. Todd Boisvert observed a similar-looking vehicle speeding up behind him as he drove his patrol car on South Main Street, toward North Smithfield. The van was “tailgating” his vehicle, Boisvert said, when he pulled over to let it a pass. Then he pulled up behind it, activating his emergency lights.
The van pulled over near Pelletier Avenue. “The operator stated in broken English, ‘No license, suspended,’” Boisvert said in a report. “I instructed the operator and the passenger to stay seated in the vehicle and I would be back in a minute.”
As Boisvert was returning to his police vehicle, the two men bolted from the van on foot. Boisvert radioed word of a foot pursuit to dispatch, which directed an assortment of resources into the field to search for the suspects, including the department’s K9 Aspen. One of the men managed to elude the police, but within minutes another policeman, Officer Justin Mowry, captured Taveras-Garcia on Morse Avenue.
Under questioning at police headquarters, Taveras-Garcia allegedly confessed that there was a small, stolen boiler in the van that the two men had ditched on South Main Street earlier. Taveras-Garcia told police he and his companion had broken into a house on West School Street earlier in the day and removed it.
When police checked on the van, they found not only the furnace, but an assortment of tools, including pry bars and a screw gun.
Police seized one more thing as evidence in the case: After he admitted to police that he was the person who had provided it to her, the note Taveras-Garcia had given Baldelli-Hunt, with the name “Eddy” on in it, was also confiscated by investigators.
Baldelli-Hunt is modest about her role in the bust, saying the police deserve most of the credit. It was impressive, she said, how quickly they wrapped the whole thing up.
“That was very quick police work,” she said. “We’re just very fortunate in this city for having such a committed and professional police force.”
Still true, though – it wasn’t the usual day at the Office of the Mayor.
“It was a different kind of day,” she says.