Footprints In Snow Lead To Arrest In Brooklyn Car Break-Ins
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- This is one cold case police in Brooklyn were happy about.
The neighborhood watch group, Flatbush Shomrim, received a call about two people trying to break into cars Tuesday morning.
When members of the group got to the scene the suspects were gone, but they had left behind a trail of footprints in the snow, the group's executive coordinator Robert Moskowitz said.
"It was very easy to follow them," Moskowitz said. "These guys were not rocket scientists."
As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, the suspect was literally stopped in his tracks.
One set of footprints disappeared into an apartment building and "we lost him," but the other set kept going, Moskowitz said.
"It was a clear path and they were able to follow them probably for about a quarter of a mile until they finally picked him up," Moskowitz told 1010 WINS.
The snow prints ended at the corner of Bedford and Avenue I. The suspect was easy to track down, because his footprints were the only ones in the fresh, newly-fallen snow.
"He was going in and out of driveways and sure enough, in one of the driveways, he entered a car," Moskowitz said.
Shomrim called police, who arrested 20-year-old Terrel St. John.
The NYPD's 70th Precinct posted a picture of the footprints to its Twitter account Monday with some advice: "Rule #1 dont break into cars during snow storm leaving your track."
