On Friday, September 28, a South Pasadena resident set a trap for and caught a burglar breaking into his home.
Over the last couple of weeks, the resident noticed alcohol missing from his home on multiple occasions. He confronted the members of his family who all denied involvement in the missing alcohol. Now believing that his home may be getting burglarized while he is away, the resident decided to set up a surveillance of his home and try to catch the potential burglar in the act.
This afternoon, the resident made it appear that he was away from his home and instead, hid inside his residence with his camera and cell phone at the ready. At about 12:40 pm, he heard a loud banging noise coming from the north side of his house and saw a window being forced open from the outside. The opening of the casement style window parted the drapes and the resident saw the suspect standing directly outside the window. The resident quickly snapped a digital picture of the suspect and yelled, "Got you [expletive]!" The suspect then fled the location on foot and the victim called the police.
South Pasadena Police Officers searched the area and located a suspect matching the description and shown in the victim's photo in the 1700 block of Wayne Av. The victim positively identified the suspect as the one that broke into his home and he was subsequently arrested for residential burglary. Joshua Rivera, a 27 year-old South Pasadena resident, is presently being held at Pasadena City Jail on $50,000 bail. There was no property loss from the burglary.
"Generally, we do not recommend people confronting burglars because they are known to carry weapons," said South Pasadena Police Sgt. Tony Abdalla. "But in this case, nobody was hurt and the burglar was caught. That's a happy ending in my book."
