A Burglar Caught? Or Just a Really Disoriented and Inebriated Man?

Wauwatosa police last week either caught a burglar in the act of hitting another local business – or they caught a clumsy, inebriated citizen trying to wake up his grandmother in a building nowhere near where she lives, if she lives at all.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office split the difference and let the man off with a misdemeanor.

You be the judge.

At 1:53 a.m. Wednesday, a 61-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for burglary after police caught him in the act of breaking and opening a window at a commercial office building in the 6300 block of West North Avenue.

A neighbor across the street had called police when he heard loud banging noises and the sound of breaking glass and looked out to see the suspect swinging an object at a window in the building.

Confronted by officers, the suspect said he was there to visit his grandmother, but the officers knew there were no residences in the building. They found the window broken and opened far enough to enter, with blood on the blinds, and determined that the man had smashed the window and reached inside to unlock it.

On Thursday, Wauwatosa Police presented the case to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to charge the suspect, Villa Johnson of 2370 N. 74th St., with burglary and instead issued a complaint of misdemeanor criminal damage to property.

Johnson appeared groggy and smelled of alcohol and said he had been drinking at Potawatomi Casino earlier. He still maintained that he had been trying to wake his grandmother, although he said he couldn’t even remember how or when he got to the building on North Avenue. He had lacerations on his arm and admitted they were from breaking the window.

Wauwatosa police were investigating a number of other similar break-ins to businesses in the area.