University Police arrested a man Friday night as he allegedly attempted to steal bikes from two different Spruce Street homes, both of which belong to Penn students.
Two plainclothes Penn Police officers saw the man walking on the 4000 block of Spruce Street around 8 p.m. Friday evening. He was carrying a bike wheel.
Officers routinely carry bulletins with information and descriptions of suspects whom police encounter frequently.
The suspect carrying the bike wheel matched the information for Braheem Johnson, 24, of the 1200 block of South Hanson Street. Police have arrested him multiple times for bike theft.
As the plainclothes officers continued to observe the suspect, he walked onto a porch at 4108 Spruce St.
He disappeared briefly from the officers' sight, but then returned and stepped down from the porch bearing a bike, without its front tire.
Uniformed officers, summoned to the scene by the plainclothes officers, detained the suspect.
The man was soon confirmed to be Johnson.
Police discovered that the bike Johnson was carrying had been locked improperly on the porch of the owner, a 19-year-old female Penn student. On the porch, they found the bike's missing wheel locked to a railing.
In addition, police located the wheel that Johnson had been carrying prior to the alleged theft at 4108 Spruce St.
The wheel had identifying markings that led officers to its owner -- a 24-year-old female Penn student who lives at 4052 Spruce St.
At that address, police found another locked bike to which the wheel had been attached.
Both victims identified their property. Johnson was arrested and subsequently charged with two counts of theft.
Penn Police arrested William Downey, 30, of the 800 block of North Taylor Street in Philadelphia's Fairmount neighborhood earlier in the week.
Downey was taken into custody Wednesday after a Penn employee saw him attempting to cut a cable lock on a bike in the Perelman Quadrangle.
