Someone drove off with a black 2024 Kia Sportage parked in front of the Montclair Public Library on October 5, and the owner believes a spare key was sitting in the glove box. The theft opens this week’s Montclair police blotter, which covers September 29 through October 6 and also includes a $725 portable toilet that vanished from an Orange Road job site, a shoplifting report on South Park Street and three arrests.
Kia Sportage stolen outside the Montclair Public Library
The owner reported the theft on South Fullerton Avenue, where the car had been parked in front of the library. Police did not say whether the car was locked or whether it has been recovered. The report notes only the owner’s belief that a spare key was in the glove box.
Four people found sitting in a parked Prius on Valley Road
On September 30, a Valley Road resident saw four people sitting inside his 2009 Toyota Prius, parked in his own driveway. He went outside to confront them, but they ran off on foot before he got there. The blotter does not say whether anything was taken from the car.
Montclair theft reports: a clothing store fitting room and a missing porta-potty
A man walked into 2nd Street Clothing on South Park Street on October 1 hoping to sell three items and left without selling any. He came back two minutes later with an empty shopping bag, browsed for a few minutes and carried three items into the farthest fitting room at the back of the store. Store surveillance video shows him removing the tags from the three items before he walked out. Police valued the goods at about $200.
On Orange Road, a company working at a vacant lot in the 200 block lost a rented portable toilet. The man who reported it rented the unit in July, and when he returned to the site this week, it was gone. Police valued it at $725.
Who was arrested in Montclair this week?
The most serious arrest came September 30. Police charged a 43-year-old Montclair man with lewdness and criminal mischief for placing his hands in his pants and exposing himself on Church Street, according to the blotter. Police say the man resisted arrest when officers arrived and now also faces charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest.
On October 2, police charged a 63-year-old Montclair man with shoplifting from Acme on Valley Road. Two days later, police charged a 31-year-old Bloomfield man with assault after a dispute on Church Street.
