🚔 Police say a parolee stole a $500,000 NJ Transit armored BearCat before dawn.
➡️ GPS tracking led detectives from Newark to the abandoned vehicle in Irvington.
⚠️ Investigators say facial recognition and a parole officer helped identify the suspect.
NEWARK — A New Jersey man is accused of violating his parole in bombastic fashion.
Christopher Bruton-Frazier, 39, admitted to a costly joyride early Tuesday morning, according to police. The confession was apparently recorded during a police interview. But police said he was first caught on surveillance video inside the NJ Transit Emergency Services Unit headquarters parking garage in Newark.
Investigators say that at 4 a.m., before most people were awake, Bruton-Frazier was stealing a tactical armored Lenco BearCat G3 for a joyride. The $500,000 vehicle is equipped for specialized SWAT emergency responses — and was somehow accessible to a man who had wandered the parking garage for nearly an hour.
It was not a smooth exit, police said. The BearCat struck another truck, a 2022 Ford F-350, and heavily damaged the fencing around the K-9 kennels for a combined $11,000 in damages. He also caused $1,800 in damage to the garage bay door, police said.
GPS tracker led police from Newark to Irvington
Around 5:15 a.m., more than an hour later, an NJ Transit police detective showed up for work. He saw the bay door was open and that the BearCat was missing. Using GPS tracking, police found the vehicle had traveled around five miles to Jersey City, briefly stopped, and then went more than a dozen miles back to Irvington…