Break-ins in RVC

Linden Street residents in Rockville Centre were shocked to learn that a man brazenly wandered around their neighborhood trying to remove items from their parked cars on Jan. 21.

Tyler Truesdell, who lives on the block with his wife and two daughters, caught the action from that night on his security camera and showed the footage to the Herald on Jan. 27. He originally installed the camera in November to prevent teenage vandalism and pranks.

The unidentified man, age 20 to 30, who wore a black jacket on top of a purple sweatshirt, blue jeans and black boots, first appeared on the screen walking across the street from Truesdell’s home at 10:25 p.m. He was observed dropping two bags before heading to that neighbor’s front door to survey the property. The indoor house lights were on at the time.

The man then headed to a black vehicle parked in the driveway of the home next door, opened the unlocked passenger door, and removed a cell phone charger and an umbrella, according to Rockville Centre police.

The subject disappeared from the screen for several minutes before re-emerging in Truesdell’s driveway at 10:45 p.m. He approached his vehicle, which contained an EZ-Pass, from the passenger side, but could not gain access to the inside of the locked car.

At one point, the subject called for a taxi and a white hybrid car picked him up with his bags at 11:07 p.m. The residents did not discover the break-ins until the following afternoon.

Next-door neighbor Santo Borruso said he and his wife arrived home just before 11 p.m. that night and noticed the taxi just before it left.

“We saw a taxi outside our neighbor’s home and we thought that was odd,” he said. “We actually stood around in the driveway for a little while waiting to see who’s getting into it. Eventually, after waiting around, we went inside and thought nothing of it.”

Truesdell’s wife Erin told him that 20 to 25 break-ins were reported on the Rockville Centre Moms Facebook page that night. He also learned that a Lakeview Avenue resident had two snowboards removed from his property. Rockville Centre Inspector Glenn Quinn confirmed the theft, but added that the boards were recovered and returned on Jan. 27.

It is unknown if the incidents were related.

Truesdell spoke to an unidentified police officer at the foot of his driveway two days later and offered to show him the footage or make a copy of it, but the officer did not leave his car. The tape from that encounter showed Truesdell becoming slightly animated when told that the matter could not be pursued.

“He basically tells me that they don’t have flash drives,” said Truesdell. “You have a budget of almost $10 million and you don’t have a flash drive over there?”

Truesdell said the officer told him that the report would “just be passed off to the county and it’s only a misdemeanor and it’s just going to go by the wayside anyway.”

Quinn said that the neighbor’s report came in on Jan. 23, making it harder for police to locate the subject.

“Three days after the fact, it’s not like we’re going to go out looking for the guy at that moment,” he said.

He added that “a personality clash right from the get-go” could have been the reason why the officer declined to view the tape.