Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Ruse doesn't fool police

By Times Staff Writer
Published October 19, 2005

TAMPA - As two Tampa police officers finished eating dinner at a restaurant Monday, they saw someone acting "suspiciously" as he walked along the nearby sidewalk in Ybor City.

They watched the man plant an orange envelope, typically used by parking officers, on a marked police car's window at 8th Avenue and 15th Street, police said.

But what seemed like a prank, police said, was really an attempt to conceal his ultimate goal: breaking into car No. 923.

"He was trying to break into cars," police spokesman Joe Durkin said, "but he was using parking tickets as a ruse."

As the man tried to pull open the car door, police said, he was startled by the two officers who had been watching him and made a run for it, dropping about a dozen parking citations along the way.

After a short pursuit, a police officer struck him with a Taser in an alley near 14th Street.

John H. Ables, 40, of 1419 E 139th Ave., Tampa, was taken to the Orient Road Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $3,500 bail, charged with attempted burglary of an automobile, resisting arrest without violence and four counts of petty theft. There was no indication that Ables succeeded breaking into any cars, Durkin said, using parking tickets taken off other cars.

[Last modified October 19, 2005, 00:58:12]