Garbage In, Garbage Out: Car Theft Suspect Pulled from Trash Cart

For the second time in two weeks, Wauwatosa police had to drag a criminal suspect out of a resident's garbage cart.

This time, a 17-year-old Milwaukee boy has been arrested and charged with stealing a Wauwatosa resident's car, not getting far, and dumpster diving in an attempt to evade a legion of police officers and a K9 sniffing him out of his odoriforous hiding place.

Javontae Jakell Taliaferro was charged Thursday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with operating a motor vehicle without the owner's consent and jumping bail on open cases of robbery, battery and resisting arrest.

The auto theft charge carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison; the bail jumping charge up to three years and six months, exclusive of the other pending charges.

According to police reports:

Just before 8 p.m. last Saturday, a resident of the 2600 block of North 70th Street had been in the alley behind his house moving his cars, and he had left his Toyota Matrix running while he went to his garage to pull another car out.

Just as he did so, he saw a dark figure run past, and he stepped out to see Taliaferro jump into his car and take off down the alley in reverse, hitting several garbage cans in the process.

The man called police, and just moments later an officer spotted the car coming south in the 2300 block of North 69th Street. He turned around to pursue, and the fleeing Taliaferro stopped suddenly, jumped out and ran.

More officers swarmed to the area and began to set up a perimeter, then gave chase when the suspect was seen running across 65th Street and getting outside the intended cordon.

Before long, Taliaferro was brought to bay when he was seen climbing into a resident’s garbage cart. He was found to have three open criminal cases in Milwaukee County, for robbery with use of force, battery, and resisting arrest, all filed within two days of one another in October.

Taliaferro told police he had stolen the car so he could go visit his girlfriend and their 2-month-old baby in Milwaukee, and that he ran from officers because he knew he would be in a world of trouble because of his standing charges – in particular, the robbery.

He was sent to the County Criminal Justice Facility.

On Jan. 7, a man and wife who live in the 2400 block of North 62nd Street saw two men breaking in to their neighbor's home and called police, who arrived in time to give chase from the burglary in progress.

One of the suspects in that crime also jumped into a garbage cart without being seen. But it seems that police are on to this clever ploy. A sergeant checked the cart, found the suspect cowering inside and ordered him out. He wouldn't budge, and it took two officers to bodily lift him out.