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Crime & Safety

A Man Who Allegedly Broke Into the Best Buy Machine at Forest Hills Led Police on a Foot Chase

Witnesses recognized the suspect when he returned after leaving the station.

The Best Buy vending machine in the , a tempting target for thieves full of expensive electronics, proved irresistable for someone who tried to break into it.

A bus driver and an inspector witnessed someone breaking into the large machine in the station lobby Thursday around 11 p.m., and alerted the officer on duty, according to a police report.

The Transit Police officer was inspecting the damaged vending machine when one of the witnesses pointed to a man walking away from the machine, who he believed was the same person he saw breaking into it moments earlier.

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Upon seeing the MBTA personnel, the suspect begun running towards the bus 39 berth and was chased by the officer who was calling him to stop.

The suspect, later identified as Jamal Smith, 23, ran into South Street and climbed a wooden fence, damaging it in the process, and tried to hide in back of 234 South St., a person's home. He was spotted by the officer who, with weapon drawn, apprehended the suspect.

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A knife and a piece of glass matching the vending machine's glass were recovered from Smith. He was arrested and charged with breaking and entering, destruction of property, trespassing and resisting arrest.

Surveillance footage showed a man matching Smith's description break the glass on the Best Buy machine, take items out of it and put them in a bag. The man then left the station and came back without the bag. That's when he was spotted. Police did not find the bag.

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