Poplar Bluff police use truck to arrest burglary suspects

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- A traffic stop on a would-be burglar's truck led local officers to then use the truck to arrest three other teenage suspects waiting for a ride following a suspected early morning burglary. At about 1:30 a.m. Monday, Poplar Bluff police officers were dispatched to the south-side Sinclair because of a burglary alarm, said Detective J. R. Keirsey.

Upon arrival, he said, the officers found the glass door had been broken. Additional officers, Keirsey said, responded to the area to search for the suspects.

Keirsey said officers saw a red pickup traveling down Route WW near the convenience store and conducted a traffic stop on it for an equipment violation. The driver, identified as Jonandrew Robert Stenger, 17, has been "arrested for recent thefts at night," Keirsey said.

As officers were talking with Stenger, "he kept getting phone calls and text messages from the other suspects wanting him to come and pick them up at one of the suspect's [homes]."

After Stenger was arrested on suspicion of second-degree burglary, Keirsey said, it was "then decided I would drive the suspect's truck, while Sgt. [Aaron] Decker, Patrolman [Dusty] Johnson and Patrolman (Shane) Bates, they were going to ride in the bed of the truck."

Keirsey said they then went to the address, where Stenger was supposed to pick up the other three individuals off Victor Street.

As the truck turned off Victor into an alley, "they were standing beside the residence," Keirsey said. "At that time, the officers in the bed of the truck jumped out and took them into custody. They were wearing the same clothes seen in the [surveillance] video at the Sinclair station."

Shyron Lamontreai Vance, 18, and Emerys Lee Vickers, 19, of Jonesboro, Ark., were arrested at 3 a.m. on suspicion of second-degree burglary. A 15-year-old boy from Poplar Bluff also was taken into custody.

Stenger, Vance and Vickers were booked at the Butler County Jail, while the juvenile was taken to the police station, where juvenile authorities and a relative met with officers and the teen, who declined to be interviewed. The teen subsequently was lodged at the Stoddard County Juvenile Detention Center in Bloomfield, Mo.

Pertinent address:

Poplar Bluff, MO