K-9 PUTS BITE ON GRINCH
Follows scent to pilfered gifts, suspect
A thankful South End grandmother is praising a group of brave Hub cops and their four-legged pooch partner who police say nabbed a heartless holiday Grinch who smashed his way into her house and swiped wrapped presents right out of her Christmas stockings.
“The police and detectives here are incredible,” the 69-year-old victim, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday of the Boston cops who responded to her Columbus Avenue home about 10:15 a.m. Monday after one of her neighbors called to report a man was using a rock to break in.
The woman told the Herald she was watching her 7-month-old and 2-year-old granddaughters in Watertown when she first learned her house had been broken into. After she arrived home to find her rear glass door shattered, the woman said investigators told her the suspect, 26-year-old Deshawn Wesley, of Boston, was arrested for the very Grinch-like crime — and a heroic K-9 officer named Vader helped sniff him out.
“I’m lucky that he was apprehended and I hope he learned a lesson,” the woman said of Wesley, adding she sympathized with the thief who police say was caught red-handed with her Christmas gifts in his backpack. The gifts — a coffee mug and date-stamper — were stolen from her Christmas stockings.
“It’s OK. It’s that time of year,” the woman said, adding she was thankful the alleged thief was respectful of her house and didn’t damage anything inside.
“I just have to have some empathy and hope he just stole for some money and not for drugs,” she said. “My apartment was clean, which leads me to believe he was looking for something that was easy to turn around and sell, something that was small because he passed by a whole bunch of things, large things.”
Officers responding to the reported break-in secured the perimeter of the building before officer David Miller released his K-9 partner, Vader, into the house. After a few minutes of searching, police said Vader found Wesley hiding in a secondfloor bedroom. Inside Wesley’s backpack, police said, were two of the woman’s wrapped Christmas presents and assorted pieces of jewelry that he’d pilfered from her bedroom.
Police Commissioner William B. Evans praised the fast-acting officers for saving the woman’s Christmas and putting a suspected burglar behind bars.
“Whether they walk on two feet or four, I continue to marvel at the hard work being done by all of my officers in their never-ending efforts to keep our city safe,” Evans said in a statement.
“And, I’m especially proud of Officer Miller and his K-9 partner Vader for the quick response and apprehension of one individual who clearly missed the memo about the importance of being good for goodness sake, especially this close to Christmas.”
Wesley was ordered held on $1,000 cash bail at his arraignment yesterday in Boston Municipal Court. He is due back in court for a pretrial hearing Jan. 16.