When Kevin Clark discovered someone broke into his car Thursday, the St. Petersburg man didn't just wait for the police.
He hunted for the culprit himself.
First, he went online and checked his credit card transactions.
Clark said there were several pending at a convenience store at 4th Street South and 22nd Avenue South. Clark went to the store, but the clerks said the man with the credit cards was no longer there.
Clark then went across the street to another convenience store when a man approached him and tried to sell him a GPS unit.
Clark said the unit was his and when he tried to grab it, police say the two scuffled before the man took off on a bicycle.
Later that evening, St. Petersburg Police officer Slobodan Juric, 24, got a tip from a person in the area about the car burglar. Juric found Sean Michael Sage at 1400 4th Street South, wearing a jacket that matched the description furnished by Clark.
Police charged Sage with burglary of Clark's car and possession of stolen property. He was also charged with violating probation on a stolen property charge out of Marion County. He is being held in the Pinellas County Jail on $20,000 bond, according to jail records.
Police say are investigating whether Sage broke into the cars of three people who were attending a crime prevention meeting in the same neighborhood where Clark and Sage lived. Those victims discovered the burglaries to their cars when they came out of the meeting at 1930 4th Street South about 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
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