BELLEVILLE –
A Newark man linked to the would-be burglary of a Smallwood Ave. residence on Aug. 17 is behind bars as a suspect in another attempted Belleville home break-in on Heckel St.
Jermaine Ramirez, 22, has been charged with two counts of burglary.
He is being held in Essex County Jail awaiting prosecution, having failed to come up with $30,000 bail, with 10% cash option, set by Municipal Court Judge Karen Smith.
BPD Det. Capt. Dan Ward said police responded to a call from a Heckel St. residence last Thursday, Sept. 1, at 4 a.m. about a man attempting to climb in a window of the house.
The intruder was half-way inside, Ward said, when he was apparently scared off by the occupant and fled the scene.
Police got a break in the case, Ward said, when investigators dusting the window picked up a print which led them to the suspect’s home address on the 600 block of N. Seventh St. in Newark, where he was arrested at 9:30 p.m. – just several hours after the attempted burglary.
While he was being questioned by detectives, Ramirez reportedly admitted that he was the man spotted by family members inside the Smallwood Ave. house shortly before 6 a.m. on Aug. 17 where, according to police, the suspect had entered through a kitchen window and walked around the upstairs rooms where family members were sleeping.
Police said that one family member roused by the intruder face-timed her parents, who were sleeping in a basement room, to alert them to his presence. The father reportedly had a brief struggle with the man before he ran out the back door.
According to Ward, nothing was believed to have been taken from either residence.
– Ron Leir
