At 4:00 AM, while most people were sleeping, Christopher Bruton-Frazier was having the time of his life, driving a $300,000, 4-ton, armored, tactical S.W.A.T. BearCat.
If he was a S.W.A.T. officer that might have made sense, but Frazier was just some guy off the street who was walking by the NJ Transit Emergency Services Unit headquarters parking garage in Newark and saw an opportunity.
Bruton-Frazier entered the NJ Transit Police Emergency Service Unit headquarters at 703 Ferry St. around 3:10 a.m. and walked through the facility before opening the garage bay where the armored vehicle was parked, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Surveillance video allegedly shows him entering the BearCat at about 4 a.m. and driving it out of the garage several minutes later.
Apparently, no one was around to notice him strolling through the facility, opening the door, and driving out.
And Frazier gave the cops ample opportunity to notice him because he didn't leave quietly.
Bruton-Frazier first attempted to leave through an area with no exit and crashed the armored vehicle into an ESU truck and fencing around the police K-9 kennels.
Despite all the carnage, the police didn't even notice the vehicle was missing until nearly an hour later.
An NJ Transit Police sergeant arriving for work discovered the BearCat missing at about 5:15 a.m.
Imagine that poor guy's face.
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GPS showed the BearCat was abandoned several miles away.
They then pulled the security footage and ran it through facial recognition software, which pulled up Frazier's profile. When they showed up at his house, they found the BearCat's backup camera in his room as well as some stacks of heroin.
Frazier is charged with second-degree motor-vehicle theft, third-degree burglary, multiple counts of third-degree criminal mischief, fourth-degree joyriding, along with multiple counts of fourth-degree theft.
And it seems like it all could have been avoided if there had been anyone keeping watch at the police garage.
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