Officers tipped off by a caller were waiting Thursday afternoon as 31-year-old city resident Dione L. Briones emerged from a Van Winkle Ave residence, Police Capt. Darren Sucorowski said.
Briones broke a first-floor front window to get in, Sucorowski said.
She claimed she was moving in and that another woman had broken the window to help her, he said.
Briones didn’t have permission to be inside and was charged with burglary, giving a false report to police and possession of drug paraphernalia, the captain said.
The former Verona resident was being held on $30,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail.
Two days earlier, city police got a call from their Passaic colleagues that they had a witness and suspect involved in a River Drive break-in.
The good Samaritan had followed the suspect over the Wall Street bridge into Passaic after seeing him climb in through a first-floor side window and out through a rear window, Sucorowski said.
Garfield police arrested Erick F.Garcia (inset, above) and recovered power tools taken during the break-in, the captain said.
Garcia, 44, of Passaic was being held on $3,500 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with burglary and theft.
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