A North Mountain Avenue homeowner awoke to see her 1993 Honda Accord backing out of her driveway, with two men sitting in the front seats last Friday, Aug. 15, at about 4:30 a.m., authorities said.

She called police, and an officer responding to the house saw the car pass by in the opposite direction, heading southbound on North Mountain Avenue. The officer turned around, started chasing the vehicle and noticed it turn left onto Union Street.

Once the officer also made that turn, he found that the perpetrators had bailed out, leaving the car parked in the street, still running, with its front driver’s and passenger’s side doors open.

Montclair Police Lt. James Carlucci said the two men had just gone on a burglary spree during which they entered six houses on North Mountain Avenue and Highmount Terrace. Investigators found three backpacks in the backseat of the abandoned car that contained expensive electronic equipment stolen from the houses, Carlucci said.

Police recovered cell phones, cameras and six laptop computers valued at around $1,000 each in the backpacks and returned the devices to their owners.

Montclair authorities called in K-9 units from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department and they searched the neighborhood for the suspects to no avail. Carlucci said the suspects might belong to the same crew responsible for a rash of residential burglaries stretching back to late last month on Midland, Clinton and North Mountain avenues.

The suspects entered the houses that were burglarized early last Friday morning through unlocked windows and doors, and in some instances they cut through the screens of back windows, according to police.

The perpetrators arrived at the scene on bicycles they later abandoned in someone’s front yard after stealing the Accord. The burglars nabbed the car keys once they got inside the residence, Carlucci said.

Police request that anyone with information that could help their investigation call the Montclair Detective Bureau, 973-509-4778.

Victim found unconscious underneath SUV

Police responding to a report of a man down in the parking lot behind Cuban Pete’s, a restaurant on Bloomfield Avenue, found a 33-year-old Montclair man unconscious under a Honda Pilot, with his legs sticking out from beneath the SUV, at 12:40 a.m. this past Sunday, Aug. 17.

The victim’s pants pockets had been turned inside out and two one-dollar bills were hanging from one of his pockets. Witnesses told investigators they saw a group of five or six men who were between 16 and 18 years old, one of whom had dreadlocks while the others were wearing fitted baseball caps, near the scene. Citizens spotted the group walking through an alleyway next to Cuban Pete’s, headed away from the rear parking lot and toward Bloomfield Avenue, and then the witnesses found the victim under the vehicle.

Members of the Montclair Volunteer Ambulance Unit who responded told investigators that a bloody wound the man had on the left side of his head might have been caused by a sharp object, such as a screwdriver or an ice pick.

Before he was taken to University Hospital in Newark, the victim, who was intoxicated, told police he was walking home from work when five men attacked him from behind. He was carrying $40 prior to the attack, and police, who are classifying the incident as a strong-arm robbery, said the money was gone.

Cops arrest owner of loose pit bull

A pit bull with a broken leash that was running through front yards along Forest Street and Sylvan Place, barking at other dogs, got its owner into trouble with the Montclair police at around 2:45 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 17, police said.

Officers arrived and tried to restrain the large adult pit bull, but it was behaving wildly and aggressively, and they had to call in Clifton Animal Control, authorities said.

While officials were struggling to rein in the dog, its owner, Emmanuel Doxy, 26, of Montclair, pulled into the driveway and grabbed the animal, police said. Officers ran a computer check of Doxy’s license plate and learned that he had an outstanding warrant from the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department, according to police. Doxy was arrested and charged with the warrant and issued a summons, since his dog was running loose, police indicated.

A Bloomfield man who was allegedly stashing soap and other hygiene products into a backpack in the CVS on Claremont Avenue was arrested and charged with shoplifting, according to police.

A store manager noticed Sahib Hassan Patterson, 35, placing objects into the bag and called the police on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 6:46 p.m., authorities said. When an officer arrived and confronted Patterson in Aisle 2, the suspect seemed nervous and started placing items back on the shelf, police said. He then admitted he had no money to pay for the merchandise.

Inside the backpack, police found a bottle of body wash and they arrested and charged Patterson, according to police. Upon searching him, officers found three packages of batteries in one of his pants pockets, authorities indicated.

Officials said the suspect also had outstanding warrants for his arrest from Belleville for $257, from Montclair for $200 and from Newark for $125, police said.

• Two men, one from Montclair and another from Newark, were arrested and charged with having outstanding warrants when police stopped to question the group they were with on Monday, Aug. 18, just after midnight.

  The suspects, Brent Stone, 20, of Montclair and Jaquece Howard, 19, of Newark, were taken into custody after police stopped and asked a group of four men congregating at North Fullerton and Claremont avenues about a bike one of them was riding, police said.

  Authorities have been trying to confirm the ownership and township registration of bikes after two bicycles were found abandoned at the scene of an Aug. 15 early-morning burglary, which was part of a recent spate of residential break-ins.

  It turned out that this bike wasn’t stolen, but when police ran warrant checks on each man in the group, they found Howard had a hold issued by the Sheriff’s Department of Riverside County, Cal., and traffic warrants out of East Orange, police indicated. Stone also had warrants out of Fairfield and Montclair, police said.

• A driver pulled over on Buckingham Road for speeding was arrested for traffic warrants, police said.

  Bloomfield resident Michael Lambroschino, 22, was spotted driving a Honda Civic north on Park Street going over 40 mph in a 25-mph zone on Wednesday, Aug. 13, at just after 9 a.m., police said.

  Officers pulled the driver over after he made a right onto Buckingham Road. After running a check of his driver’s license through their in-car computer, authorities found Lambroschino had traffic warrants for $660 and $220 from Bloomfield, and for $240 from Middletown, police said.

  The driver was arrested and given a summons for speeding. He was turned over to Bloomfield police at 10:37 a.m. and the car was left in his passenger’s care.

• Gina Patterson, 19, of Belleville, was arrested and charged with having outstanding warrants from Newark for $300 and $125 and from Montclair for $125 on Van Vleck Street at 11:09 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15, police said.

  An officer was randomly keying motorists’ license plate numbers into the patrol car’s mobile data terminal when he typed in the number of Patterson’s 1995 Ford Taurus, according to police. The search uncovered the warrants and Patterson was stopped and arrested. She was also given a summons for driving with a suspended license.

• Howard Lee Hooker Jr., 33, of Paterson, was handed over to the Montclair police by authorities in Little Falls on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 11:53 p.m. Hooker was being held in Little Falls on a warrant issued by Montclair, officials said. He was released at 1:05 a.m. after posting $500 bail.

The word "LAMA" was written in black spray paint on a wall in front of a single-family house on Nishuane Road at some point between 3 and 6 a.m. last Tuesday, Aug. 12, police said. The wall was one of several locations on Nishuane Road where vandals had painted that word.

• A wallet and a laptop computer were stolen out of an SUV parked inside the North Fullerton Avenue Parking Deck sometime between 3 and 4:15 p.m. on Aug. 12, police said.

  The victim, a woman from Cedar Grove, told police that the suspects stole a $950 Dell laptop computer, a black wallet and a check written out to her for $100. The Jeep Grand Cherokee had been parked on the first level of the parking deck.

  Investigators found no sign of forced entry to the Jeep, police said.

• Two fishing poles, tackle and two global positioning systems were stolen out of an SUV parked outside a Roman Catholic church sometime between 10 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 14, and 6 a.m. the following day.

  The 1997 Jeep Cherokee might have been left unlocked when the owner parked it on Pine Street near Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, police said. The suspects dropped some of the stolen items as they ran away from the scene, leaving a trail of stolen belongings stretching north on Pine Street and east on Sherman Street.

  — DAN PROCHILO

  "Police news" is compiled by The Montclair Times from information provided by the Montclair Police Department. The information is released to the press at the discretion of the department and may not represent the total scope of police activity. Accounts that indicate charges pending against an individual do not imply guilt or innocence.