Gadsden police arrest new years burglary suspect

Travell Montez Malone

Gadsden police report A man was arrested New Year’s Day after someone reported seeing him carrying a TV over a wall behind a South 12th Street residence.

Police were called at about 1:15 a.m. new years morning to take a burglary report at a residence in the 800 block of South 12th Street. While they were there to take the report, relatives of the victim discovered that their home, across the street from the first victims, had also been burglarized.

At the first home, someone had thrown a rock through a window to gain entry. Drawers had been pulled out of furniture throughout the house. Nothing was immediately known missing other than a pair of red Converse shoes.

Those shoes were found on the ground outside a window at the burglarized house next door.

At the second house, far more property was reported missing. Four TVs, two DVD players, DVDs and two tablet devices were reported stolen.

All would be recovered, however, when police got another call to the neighborhood a little more than an hour later.

At about 2:30 a.m. officers were dispatched to another residence in the 800 block of South 12th Street after someone said they’d seen a man carrying a TV over the fence behind that residence, a few houses away from the scenes of the earlier burglaries.  When the officer looked over the brick wall, he could see a couple of TVs sitting on the ground beside a trash can in the driveway of a residence in the 1200 block of Walnut Street. As the officer began to climb the wall, a tall, slender black man wearing jeans and a crimson toboggan stood up beside the trash can and run away from him toward Walnut Street. The officer yelled at him to stop, but he kept running.

After searching the area for several minutes, officers found the suspect, lying on the porch of a residence in the 1200 block of Walnut Street.

The suspect was handcuffed, and officers found a TV controller in his pocket, along with a check written to one of the homeowners in the earlier burglary reports and a cellphone.

19 year old Travell Montez Malone, was arrested for two counts of third-degree burglary. He is in the Etowah County Detention Center; no bond has been set.