After receiving reports of four similar thefts in the past two weeks, Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) officers arrested a man just after 4 p.m. yesterday while he was breaking into a car.
The man fit the description of a suspect who was recently spotted stealing a global positioning system (GPS) unit from a vehicle in Medford, TUPD Sgt. Robert McCarthy told the Daily.
An officer observed a man with a bicycle breaking into a car belonging to someone affiliated with Tufts. The car was parked on Colby Street in Medford, near the Science and Technology Center. The man was arrested for breaking and entering into the vehicle, and McCarthy said that it appeared that the suspect was attempting to steal the car's GPS unit.
The individual appeared to be in his 20s and was wearing a white t-shirt.
The arrest comes after a wave of GPS thefts over the past couple weeks. Since Sept. 17, TUPD has received four reports — all in Medford — of GPS units stolen from cars. In one case on Sept. 17, a system was taken from a car parked on the same street where yesterday's incident occurred.
The Medford Police Department has also recently received multiple reports of GPS thefts in the area. McCarthy said that Medford police had identified a young man riding a bicycle as a possible suspect.
After an officer yesterday saw someone fitting this description break into a vehicle, the suspect dropped his bicycle and fled onto nearby Harvard Street, where he was quickly apprehended by another TUPD officer.
TUPD transferred custody of the suspect to the Medford Police Department. He did not have any identification on him, and yesterday evening police were trying to determine his identity, McCarthy said.
McCarthy said that Medford police, who will be conducting an investigation, will likely have trouble pinning the man to other recent GPS thefts. It is possible that more than one person has been stealing the units, and thieves often resell such items quickly, sometimes on sites like CraigsList.com, according to McCarthy.
"Stuff like that is hard," he said. "If he's the one that stole all the GPS systems around here, I guarantee they're all sold by now."
