WARREN - An observant 12-year-old, a set of footprints and quick police work led to the arrest of two men Wednesday afternoon following a home invasion on Westwood Drive N.W.
Shon L. Thompson, 20, 713 Fifth St. S.W., and O'Mearo L. Beaver, 19, 1000 Commerce St. S.W., were arraigned Thursday morning in Warren Municipal Court on charges of aggravated burglary. They are being held at the Trumbull County Jail without bond and are due back in court Feb. 5 for a preliminary hearing.
Police Chief Tim Bowers said the two men, along with a third who has not yet been arrested, are suspected in several other home invasions in the area over the past several weeks. He would not say more Thursday.
No one answered a knock on the door of the boy's home late Thursday morning.
On the 911 tape, the 12-year-old calmly told dispatchers what had happened although he admitted he was scared.
''I'm not in any danger right now, but it's urgent,'' the boy said when a dispatcher answered the call.
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Dispatcher: ''911.''
Caller: ''I'm not in any danger right now, but it's urgent. Three people that came through my door - my mom is at work and so is my dad and they kicked in our door and stole a ton of our stuff, a whole lot of it. They told me to get down. I did.''
Dispatcher: ''So you are saying you were just robbed?''
Caller: ''Yes.''
Dispatcher: ''Did they have weapons?''
Caller: ''I'm not quite sure. They left now.''
Dispatcher: ''Do you know who they were?''
Caller: ''No.''
After the dispatcher gets the caller's name and address, she asks, ''How'd they get in the house?''
Caller: ''I think ... I'm not quite sure. I heard the door open and I thought it was my mom.''
Dispatcher: ''Was the door unlocked, hon?''
Caller: ''No, it wasn't.''
Dispatcher: ''They came in through a locked door?''
Caller: ''Yes."
Bowers credited the boy with helping dispatchers, who in turn relayed his information to police.
''He did a wonderful job of staying calm and giving us the information,'' Bowers said.
According to a police report, the boy called 911 about 3 p.m. after three men came in the back door and ordered him to the floor. The boy's mother told police she left home at 2:30 p.m. to run an errand and she was gone for 10 minutes before her son came out of the bathroom and saw three men coming in the back door.
One of the men told the boy to lie down on the floor and told him he would not get hurt if he cooperated and told them where the "stuff" was, according to the police report.
The men raided the basement and bedrooms, taking a 40-inch flat-screen television, a Wii game system and 12 games, a PlayStation 2 and 15 games, two Nintendo DS systems and games, an iPod, a digital camera, a woman's wallet with credit cards and a checkbook, a small wooden jewelry box with miscellaneous jewelry, cash, a green blanket and the cordless house phone, the report states.
The burglars loaded the car and the boy stood up as they were backing out of the driveway, enabling him to get a vehicle description. He told police the car was a metallic reddish color. He also gave police a description of all three burglars.
On the tape, the boy said: ''I came out of the bathroom, and I thought it was my mom...''
''Stay on the line, hon,''' the dispatcher said.
''I'm just really scared,'' the boy said.
When his mother came home, he could be heard saying ''I'm sorry'' before the dispatcher told him, ''We have officers on the way, and we have officers checking the area,'' before speaking to his mother. As dispatchers hung up, one of them could be heard saying, ''That poor kid.''
A neighbor told police she saw the same vehicle backing out of the driveway at a high rate of speed and turn east on Westwood.
About 15 minutes after the descriptions were given over the police radio, Detective Sgt. Jeff Cole found a matching vehicle in the 1300 block of Fifth Street S.W., the report states. Two suspects, later identified as Thompson and Beaver, had some of the victims' property on them when they were arrested, police said.
Cole said Thursday he had a hunch the suspects may have been heading to the Hampshire House area and he saw the car as he drove by. As he radioed for backup, he looped around and when he drove back he saw that the men in the car matched the descriptions. That's when he stopped and held the men while he waited for other officers to arrive, the report states.
''I guess it was a lot of luck,'' Cole said. ''Let's call it luck.''
Officer Brian Crites found tire tracks and footprints in the snow outside the victims' home, and Thompson's tennis shoes matched the footprints, according to the report.
The suspects were identified by the 12-year-old boy and items found on Thompson and Beaver and inside the car were returned to him and his mother.
Bowers said Cole and others officers did a good job of processing the information and information from neighbors was crucial. He added that with a short staff, he is looking at the crime patterns every day trying to determine where to best use the limited resources he has.
''Every day, I'm looking at the schedule and adjusting it to where the need is,'' Bowers said.
Just last week, an elderly woman in the 2300 block of Tod Avenue N.W., just a couple of houses from Westwood Drive N.W., was awakened by a pair of men breaking into her home. They threw a blanket over her head and took some items. Two men later were arrested at a nearby grocery store.
Police had no other arrests in the case as of Thursday afternoon, Cole said.