Palm Beach Police have arrested a West Palm Beach man on felony burglary charges after they say he was caught on home surveillance cameras illegally entering into two Midtown properties.
The 27-year-old man was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail at 4:20 a.m. April 27 on two counts of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, according to jail records.
A resident in the 300 block of Hibiscus Avenue called police at about 10:40 p.m. April 26 to report that a man with a backpack and a flashlight had tried to get into the side door of his home, according to an arrest report.
The homeowner told officers that a surveillance system on the property sent an alert that someone was there. When the resident reviewed the surveillance footage, he saw a man wearing a white shirt, dark-colored pants and a backpack walk around the home, enter a side gate and try to get into the house by tugging on a side door, the arrest report said.
A few minutes later, Palm Beach dispatchers reported that another possible burglary had been reported in the 300 block of Chilean Avenue, half a block from the other home, police said.
An officer who went to the Chilean Avenue apartments saw a man who matched the description of the man seen on the surveillance footage. The man was leaving a second-floor stairwell and carrying several items, the report said.
Once he was taken into custody, the report said, the man told officers that a friend sent him to the Chilean Avenue property to pick up an e-bike — an electric motorized bicycle. “He also claimed he did not know who lived at the location and was confused,” police wrote in the arrest report.
A first-floor resident at the Chilean Avenue apartments provided officers with Ring doorbell camera footage that showed the man inside one of the second-floor units, the report said. The footage captured him walking through the apartment and changing his shirt, police said.
The man covered the camera when he noticed the device, the arrest report said.
The man remained at the Palm Beach County Jail as of 9 a.m. April 29 on a $30,000 bond, records show.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Police say man’s burglary attempts were caught on cameras
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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