46°
Records show Tamir Pitts, 18, has been arrested numerous times over the past several months only to be released almost immediately from county jails or station houses in New Jersey under the state’s 2017 Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act.
Then he’s arrested again.
It was mid-July, authorities said, when Pitts was charged with stealing and then abandoning a BMW at the Livingston Mall. It not being a violent crime, he was quickly ordered released.
Only nine days later, Pitts and two of his pals led police on an overnight chase from the Route 72 Causeway Bridge at Long Beach Island to the northern Garden State Parkway in a BMW stolen out of New York City.
Spike strips laid out at the Parkway entrance flattened the front two tires, but the BMW continued up the GSP for several miles before it became disabled and the trip bailed out.
Pitts and another Newark man, Joseph Young-Stewart, were quickly captured, with the assistance of the New Jersey State Police and their colleagues from Beachwood, Toms River and South Toms River, Stafford police said at the time.
Pitts was soon free again, only to be arrested at least twice more in Essex County since July, records show.
Franklin Lakes Detectives Jon Rynander and Frank O'Brien zeroed in on him while investigating a May burglary on Silent Nest Way off Northwood Drive near the Haledon Reservoir, Capt. Mark McCombs said.
Slipping into the home through an unsecured interior door, Pitts swiped a wallet, laptop, luggage, house keys and the fob to a 2020 Range Rover, authorities charged.
After burglarizing an unsecured 2016 Ford F-150 that had been parked in the driveway, Pitts used the garage door opener to get in and steal the Range Rover, they said.
Franklin Lakes detectives obtained a warrant for Pitts’s arrest this past Monday, Sept. 12. He was seized and sent to the Essex County Correctional Facility three days later.
It was just after midnight Friday when Pitts was brought to Franklin Lakes police headquarters and formally charged with burglary, theft and receiving stolen property.
Pitts has remained in the Bergen County Jail pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack since then. Prosecutors were expected to ask a judge to order him held pending trial.
Meanwhile, other jurisdictions are probing Pitts's alleged involvement in a series of crimes in their towns.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Fair Lawn-Glen Rock and receive free news updates.
