SAVANNAH, GA (December 1, 2010): Communication between a Downtown Precinct officer on light duty, Downtown Special Operations and a Central Precinct detective has landed a homeless man in jail on several charges.
Jonathan Paris Simpson, 34, was charged with loitering and prowling and possession of tools for the commission of a crime, and served two outstanding warrants for theft by receiving stolen property/theft by deception on Nov. 20 after the detective noticed him looking into houses and recognized him as the subject of warrants issued earlier.
Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Sgt. Armando Tamargo, a detective in the Central precinct, observed Simpson walking through back yards in the first block of East 37th Street. After questioning him, he realized Simpson was the subject of outstanding warrants for his arrest from the Downtown Precinct for theft by receiving stolen bicycle and theft by deception. Sgt. Tamargo had been alerted to the warrants earlier in the day at an event for the homeless being held in Forsyth Park.
The warrants had been issued earlier after Officer Tarra Kohler Smith in the Downtown Precinct, while scanning pawn shop records, noticed as many as 12 bicycles had been pawned by Simpson since June 2009. Only one of the bicycles had been reported stolen.
About the same time, Special Operations had been alerted by the victim of a bicycle theft, that her stolen bike was locked to a pole at Broughton and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. After staking out the bike for some time, DSO officers were told by a waitress in a nearby restaurant that she had purchased the bicycle for $75 and she identified Simpson as the seller from a photograph.
Simpson also had served time in the mid-1990s for child molestation and aggravated assault.
Sgt. Dan Flood of the DSO complimented the communication and close work between the various departments of SCMPD for the arrest.
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