Barnegat Police Recover Stolen Cell Phone

Barnegat–On August 26th at 7:00pm, Ptl. Alex Hoffman arrested Vane Jackson, 25, of Willingboro, NJ for theft of a cell phone from the Genuardis store on West Bay Avenue.

Ptl. Hoffman responded to the store at 3:00pm after the victim, a 48 year old Barnegat resident, reported that her cell phone was stolen from a Genuardis grocery basket.

The victim had accidentally left the cell phone in the hand-held basket after checking out, but returned minutes later when she realized what she had done. She found the basket, but the cell phone had been removed.

Store employees described to the victim a customer who had just used the same self checkout register. The victim observed someone meeting that description (later identified as Jackson) in the parking lot and approached him asking if he had taken a phone. Jackson denied taking the phone and drove away.

Ptl. Hoffman reviewed video surveillance footage from the Genuardis which showed a male subject removing the cell phone from the basket and placing it in his pocket before exiting the store.

Later that evening, Ptl. Hoffman was on Lexington Blvd enroute to backup officers on an unrelated call when he observed a male subject that appeared to be the same subject he had observed in the video. Ptl. Hoffman spoke with the subject (later identified as Jackson) and through his investigation was able to determine that Jackson had taken the cell phone.

The cell phone was recovered from a Lexington Blvd residence and Jackson was placed under arrest.

Jackson was processed and released after being charged with theft.

The HTC cell phone, valued at $499, was returned to the victim.

Posted by Ocean County News on Sep 3 2012. Filed under Barnegat, Police Blotter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.