MILPITAS (CBS SF) — An 18-year-old San Jose man is suspected of committing 12 burglaries of businesses in the Great Mall of the Bay Area in Milpitas from early March to his arrest on Tuesday, police said.
Milpitas police arrested Cachius Lamiere Brown after a report at 1:35 p.m. of employees of Clark’s Bostonian Shoes chasing away a male suspect from the employee area of the store, according to officers.
Police booked Brown into the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose on suspicion of 12 counts of burglary and two counts of credit card fraud.
He is currently being held in custody there on $92,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in San Jose next Thursday and on May 6, according to jail records.
A manager of the shoe store, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, Jackie, said that she encountered the suspect in the store Tuesday and later identified him for police.
She said she was working in the stock room and after the door closed, she saw the suspect’s shadow on a wall inside.
When she asked him what he was doing there, he said he was looking for the bathroom, Jackie said. She then made him show what was in his pockets and he pulled out his pants pockets, which contained nothing, and she told him where the mall bathroom was, she said.
She watched him walk casually out of the store, then asked her two female employees to check their purses. Her purse was missing cash and credit cards and one of her employees discovered credit cards were taken from her purse, Jackie said.
Jackie realized that she did not ask the suspect to show what was in the pockets of the sweater he was wearing, she said. She then notified police.
Officers responding found Brown within the mall at 550 Great Mall Drive and arrested him on suspicion of burglarizing credit cards and cash from the employees’ purses, police said.
Police investigated further and named Brown as the suspect in 11 additional burglaries from businesses in the mall from March 4 to his arrest Tuesday, officers said.
Brown is also suspected of using two stolen credit cards belonging to two burglary victims, they said.
Jackie said that police informed her that Brown had confessed to committing the other 11 burglaries.
The shoe store will be getting lockers for employees to place their purses, she said.
Police are asking those with information about the investigation into the burglaries to phone the department’s general number at (408) 586-2400 or leave an anonymous tip at the Crime Hot Line at (408) 586-2500.
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