A window punch, like the one pictured here, was found on the man now charged with theft from nearby vehicles. (Credit: SZEOF Store / Amazon.com)
The man was loitering after 4 a.m. in the same vicinity as the incident, police said.
When Whitemarsh Police came upon a suspicious male walking around the community around 4 a.m. in the morning, it didn’t take them long to detect something more was going on.
A Whitmarsh police officer was on foot patrol in the township on Sept. 8 around 4:12 a.m., police said, in the area of Westaway Drive and Fields Drive in the Lafayette Hill section, when he came upon a male, later identified as Jonathan Douglas Augenblick, 38, of Lafayette Hill.
Augenblick was seen by police as he came from a nearby residence on Presidential Drive and stated he was heading home, police said. Police said that Augenblick’s front pocket of his sweatpants was “protruding out.”
According to reports, police questioned Augenblick what was in his pockets, and Augenblick removed a single black glove that he said he “found on the street.” Augenblick also had a gray winter knit hat and a yellow vape. Police said, however, that there appeared to still be contents in his pocket, and therefore patted him down.
Police said that they located a five-inch, rose gold-colored window punch and seatbelt cutter tool. Augenblick said that he’d found the tool, as well, reports said. Augenblick was profusely sweating during questioning, and police asked him why. Reports said that Augenblick told police “he had done some meth earlier, and he had the sweats from it.”
Reports stated that police then searched the immediate area for anything Augenblick may have disposed of prior to the interaction, but nothing was found, so police released Augenblick but kept the tool.
Upon following up on the case, police reached out to a woman who is a resident of the 600 block of Fields Drive, as they had observed footprints in the grassy area in the morning dew leading up to the home’s driveway where the owner’s vehicles were parked, reports said. The home was nearby the Fields and Westaway drives intersection and had a video surveillance system.
Police asked the homeowner for the video footage from a Blink system, and it showed Augenblick alongside a black pick-up truck parked in the driveway, they said. According to reports, the truck was the closest to the home, and Augenblick tried to open its driver’s side door around 3:48 a.m. then running toward the street, heading east toward Kolter Drive as motion lights from the garage area came on.
The clothing seen in the video was the same police observed Augenblick wearing when they encountered him in the street the same night, reports said. Augenblick, police said, has been arrested “numerous times in the recent past” for the same criminal activity.
Augenblick is currently being held in county jail, unable to post a monetary bond. He is charged with a felony count of theft from a motor vehicle, as well as a misdemeanor of loitering and prowling at nighttime. Police reports did not note what, if anything, was removed from the vehicles.
Augenblick is due in court on Oct. 16 at 10:45 a.m. before Magisterial District Judge Dara Nasatir for a preliminary hearing.
