Officer and dog track burglary suspects
Edwin Diaz-Hernandez, left, Javier Hernandez, right, and a juvenile were arrested by Suffolk County Police on charges of burglarizing a Huntington Station church, police said. (Feb. 2, 2012) Credit: SCPD
A police officer and his dog partner, Blue, tracked and found two men and a teenager hiding in a boat after they burglarized a Huntington Station church early Wednesday morning, Suffolk police said.
The alarm went off at St. Peter's Lutheran Church on Ogden Court about 2:18 a.m., and officers saw the side church door and windows were broken, police said. The burglars had entered through the school portion of the church, damaged part of the school area and stole a little food, including cups of instant noodles, police said.
"They ripped a video camera off the wall," said Det. Sgt. Steven Bluethgen of the Second Precinct. "There's a glass display case. They smashed that."
Officers set up a perimeter watch around the church, police said, and when Officer John Mallia and Blue arrived, the burglars' tracks were about an hour old.
The K-9 unit followed the trail for more than a mile and an hour in Huntington Station, police said. "They were relentless and eventually located these three guys in the boat," Bluethgen said.
The three were found at a Brompton Place home, in a boat in the front yard, police said.
Javier Hernandez, 21, of 154 E. 23rd St., Huntington Station, and Edwin Diaz-Hernandez, 16, of 14 Leyden St., Huntington Station were charged with third-degree burglary and third-degree criminal mischief. They are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday at First District Court in Central Islip.
A 15-year-old boy was charged on the same counts as a juvenile and taken to Family Court, police said.
Mallia and Blue were on a training exercise Dec. 11, 2010, at Gilgo Beach when they found the remains of one woman, triggering a search for a likely serial killer. Two days later, the two discovered the bodies of three other women on the same strip of land.