A safe holding more than $25,000 worth of guns, rifles and jewelry was recovered and a pair of burglary suspects arrested, thanks to the efforts of a Miami-Dade Police Kendall District officer.
A plot that read like a pulp fiction crime scenario began unfolding on Feb. 9 when Sgt. Melissa Peacock, during her midnight shift, spotted a white Ford F-150 truck westbound on Kendall Drive from SW 122nd Avenue.
Trained to look for details, two items immediately got her attention: the vehicle’s Florida license tag was obstructed from view and the open truck bed carried a large steel safe, covered by a green tarpaulin.
Initiating a traffic stop, Sgt. Peacock became doubly suspicious when the truck’s occupants were “unable to dispel” her concerns about their cargo, noting the driver said he “picked up the safe” but was unable to provide the exact address of its former location, nor adequate reasons for his early morning trip.
Taken into custody with a companion female, Officer Peacock initially detained the pair for “prowling and loitering.”
Once at the station, the driver admitted complicity with a friend who lived in the home where the safe was located, and a BOLO (Be On the Lookout) alert was broadcast countywide for the second suspect. A call later summoned police to 19600 Cutler Rd. where the bedroom safe was reported missing by its owner.
Investigating officers said the pair conspired to steal the safe — the “resident” taking the home’s owner fishing while a second entered the unoccupied house to steal the safe and its contents. The “resident” conspirator left a screwdriver near a front door to help his friend dismantle a deadbolt lock.
Through subsequent descriptions and investigative work, the “resident” burglar was located and both he and his companion in crime were arrested, charged with armed burglary and grand theft.
When Sgt. Peacock made her initial stop, the female riding in the truck with one burglar was released when it was decided she had nothing to do with the burglary.
For her professionalism and investigative effort, Sgt. Peacock was named as February 2012 “Officer-of-the-Month” for Kendall District, and honored for her performance at a Citizens Advisory Committee meeting Mar. 28 by chair Barry White and Maj. James J. O’Donnell, District Commander.
Woot woot! You go guys! Thank you for all you do.